VSSC is ISRO’s chief facility for the design and development of rocket technologies for the Indian space program. Ramarishnan previously helped develop the country’s first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3) and ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

   Ramakrishnan also served as project director of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-Mark III) and chairman of the flight readiness review for the country’s maiden unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008.

   ISRO Senior Scientist and former SDSC Director M. Chandradathan was appointed director of the space agency’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Mahendragiri to replace Ramakrishnan. Indian scientist M.Y.S. Prasad replaced Chandradathan as director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota.

   Chandradathan contributed to the development of solid boosters for PSLV and GSLV rockets and in establishing new a mission control center and launch control center to meet the spaceport’s future launch vehicle requirements.

   Prasad was associate director of SDSC prior to his new appointment and director of ISRO’s master control facility and supervised the setting of a new master control facility at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Prasad was also space counselor in the Indian embassy in Paris and interfaced with international space agencies, including the aerospace industries of European countries for ISRO programs.