Satish Dhawan (25 September 1920 – 3 January 2002) was an Indian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and aerospace engineer. He served as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from 1972 to 1984 and is often regarded as the father of experimental

fluid dynamics In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including (the study of air and other gases in motion ...

research in India, Born in

Srinagar Srinagar (; ) is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary ...

, Dhawan was educated in India and further on in United States. Dhawan was one of the most eminent researchers in the field of

turbulence In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers with no disruption between ...

and boundary layers, leading the successful and indigenous development of the Indian space programme.The second launch pad of ISRO, Satish Dhawan Space Centre is named after him. He is greatly regarded as the man behind A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Early life

Dhawan was born on 25 September 1920 in

in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (present-day Jammu and Kashmir,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

) into a Hindu Saraiki family. His father, Devi Dayal Dhawan, came from migrated from Dera Ismail Khan to Srinagar. Satish Dhawan grew up in Srinagar and Lahore. His father, Rai Bahadur Devi Dayal, was an MSc and LLB who joined the Punjab Civil Service and later became a sessions and district judge.

Education

Dhawan was a graduate of what is now called Punjab Engineering College in the city of Chandigarh in India, the Mughalpura Technical College in Lahore, Pakistan,

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

, where he completed a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in physics and mathematics, a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

in English literature. In 1947, he completed a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and an aeronautical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology followed by a double PhD in mathematics and aerospace engineering under the supervision of his advisor Hans W. Liepmann in 1951.

Leadership in space research

In 1972, Dhawan became chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and secretary to the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

at the Department of Space. APJ Abdul Kalam explained that in 1979 when he was the director of a Satellite Launch Vehicle, the mission failed to launch the satellite in the orbit. Instead, it was put into the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

. Abdul Kalam's team knew that there was a leakage in the fuel of the system, but they hoped that the leakage was negligible, and thus they thought there was enough fuel in the system. This miscalculation led to the mission's failure. Satish Dhawan, being the chairman at the time, called Abdul Kalam and conveyed to the press; "We failed! But I have very strong trust in my team and I believe that next time we will definitely succeed". This surprised Abdul Kalam, as the blame of the failure was taken by the chairman of ISRO. The next mission was prepared and launched successfully in 1980. When this succeeded, Satish Dhawan told Abdul Kalam to attend the press meet without his presence. It was observed that when the team failed, he took the blame. But when the team succeeded, he attributed the success to his team, thus portraying the picture of an ideal leader. Satish Dhawan was chairman of ISRO until 1984.

Director, IISc (1962–1981)

Dhawan joined as faculty at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc),

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, in 1951 and became its director in 1962. Although he was the head of the Indian space programme, he devoted substantial efforts towards boundary layer research. His most important contributions are presented in the seminal book ''Boundary Layer Theory'' by Hermann Schlichting. He set up the country's first supersonic wind tunnel at IISc. He also pioneered research on relaminarization of separated boundary layer flows, three-dimensional boundary layers and trisonic flows.

Support of space research

Dhawan carried out pioneering experiments in rural education,

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...

and

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

communications. His work resulted in operational systems including INSAT, a telecommunications satellite;

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

, an Indian Remote Sensing satellite; and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which established India as a space-faring country.

Honours

Dhawan died on 3 January 2002 in

. In honor of his contributions, the satellite launch center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, was renamed the Satish Dhawan Space Centre following his death. Satish Chander Dhawan Government College For Boys in Ludhiana is named after him.The Department of Mechanical Engineering Building at the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar is also named in his honor as the Satish Dhawan Block. In 2019, the Uttar Pradesh Textile Technology Institute in Kanpur named its computer center the Prof. Satish Dhawan Computer Centre.

Career

* Indian Institute of Science,

:*Senior scientific officer, 1951 :*Professor and head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, 1955 :*Director, 1962–1981 * California Institute of Technology, US :*Visiting Professor, 1971–72 * National Aerospace Laboratories,

:*Chairman, Research council, 1984–93 * Indian Academy of Sciences :*President, 1977–1979 * Indian Space Research Organisation :*Chairman, 1972–1984 *Indian Space Commission :*Chairman, 1972–2002

Awards

* Padma Vibhushan (India's second highest civilian honour), 1981 * Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian honour), 1971 *Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration, 1999 *Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Science *Distinguished Alumnus Award, California Institute of Technology, 1969

Personal life

He was married to Nalini Dhawan, a cytogeneticist, and his daughter Jyotsna Dhawan is serving as senior principal scientist in the

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (, IAST: ''Kośikīya evam āṇavik jīvavijñāna kendra'') or CCMB is an Indian fundamental biotechnology, life science research establishment located in Hyderabad that operates under the aegis ...

Works

* 1953: "Direct measurements of skin friction", Technical Report 1121,

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency that was founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its ...

, Washington DC. * 1958; "Some properties of boundary layer flow during the transition from laminar to turbulent motion",

Journal of Fluid Mechanics The ''Journal of Fluid Mechanics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of fluid mechanics. It publishes original work on theoretical, computational, and experimental aspects of the subject. The journal is published by Cambridge Un ...

3(4): 418 – 36 * 1967: "Aeronautical Research in India", (22nd British Commonwealth Lecture), Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society 71: 149-184. * 1982: "A glimpse of fluid mechanics research in Bangalore 25 years ago", in ''India: Surveys in fluid mechanics'', Indian Academy of Sciences (Eds. R Narasimha, S M Deshpande) 1-15. * 1988: ''Developments in Fluid Mechanics and Space Technology'', (Eds. R Narasimha, APJ Abdul Kalam) Indian Academy of Sciences. * 1991: "Bird flight", ''Sadhana Proceedings in Engineering Sciences'', Indian Academy of Sciences. * 2000: Special Section on Instabilities, transitions and turbulence, (Ed. R Narasimha) Current Science 79: 725-883.

References

* P.A. Davidson, Y. Kaneda, K. Moffatt, and K.R. Sreenivasan (eds, 2011). ''A Voyage Through Turbulence'', chapter 11, pp 373–92,

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

External links

*
Bird Flight by Satish Dhawan
(2nd edition, 2020) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dhawan, Satish 1920 births 2002 deaths California Institute of Technology alumni Space programme of India Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in science & engineering Indian Space Research Organisation people University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumni Indian fluid dynamicists Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in science & engineering People from Srinagar University of the Punjab alumni Indian aerospace engineers Directors of the Indian Institute of Science Recipients of the Padma Shri in science & engineering 20th-century Indian engineers Engineers from Jammu and Kashmir 20th-century Indian physicists