Dr. Sreedhara Panicker Somanath is a distinguished space scientist with a career spanning nearly 40 years in space technology and launch vehicle systems engineering. He served as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman of ISRO until January 2025, where he led the historic Chandrayaan-3 lunar south-pole landing, piloted India’s National Space Policy, advanced private-sector participation in space, and shaped the “Space Vision-2047” roadmap encompassing the Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, the Bharatiya Antariksha Station, and missions to the Moon. Notable missions during his tenure include Aditya-L1, XPoSat, INSAT-3DS, NVS-01, SpaDeX, and LVM3-OneWeb, alongside the development of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle and Reusable Launch Vehicle experiments. He previously directed the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre. A graduate of TKM College of Engineering, with a master’s from IISc Bangalore and a PhD from IIT Madras, he currently serves as Vikram Sarabhai Professor at ISRO, Distinguished Visiting Professor at IISc, Chancellor of Chanakya University, and Advisor to the Government of Andhra Pradesh. He is a Fellow of numerous national and international academies including the US National Academy of Engineering and the recipient of honors such as the IAF Hall of Fame and the Von Kármán Award.