Satish Dhawan

Satish Dhawan (25 September 1920–3 January 2002) was an Indian rocket scientist who was born in Srinagar, India and educated in India and the United States. He is considered by the Indian scientific community to be the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India and one of the most eminent researchers in the field of turbulence and boundary layers. He succeeded Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme, as Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1972. He was also the Chairman of the Space Commission and Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Space. In the decade following his appointment he directed the Indian space programme through a period of extraordinary growth and spectacular achievement.

Even while 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 was a popular professor at the Indian Institute of Science, (IISc) located in Bangalore. He is credited for setting up the first supersonic wind tunnel in India at IISc. He also pioneered research on relaminarization of separated boundary layer flows, three-dimensional boundary layers and trisonic flows.

Dhawan carried out pioneering experiments in rural education, remote sensing and satellite communications. His efforts led to operational systems like INSAT- a telecommunications satellite, IRS - the Indian Remote Sensing satellite and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) that placed India in the league of space faring nations. Following his death in 2002, the Indian satellite launch centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, located about 100 km north of Chennai in South India was renamed as the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

Career

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
*Senior Scientific Officer, 1951
*Professor and Head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, 1955
*Director, 1962-1981California Insititute of Technology, USA
*Visiting Professor, 1971-72National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, India
*Chairman,Research council, 1984-93Indian Academy of Sciences
*President, 1977-1979Indian Space Research Organisation
*Chairman, 1972-1995Indian Space Commission
*Chairman, 1972-2002

Education

University of the Punjab in Lahore (now in Pakistan)
*BA in Mathematics and Physics,
*MA in English Literature
*BE in Mechanical Engineering, 1945
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
*MS in Aeronautical Engineering,1947
California Institute of Technology,
*Aeronautical Engineer’s Degree, 1949
*PhD in Aeronautics and Mathematics,1951, (with Prof Hans W. Liepmann as his advisor)

Awards

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

References

# Dhawan S: Direct measurements of skin friction. Tech. Rep No.1121, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Washington DC 1953.
# Schlichting H, Gersten K: Boundary Layer Theory (8th Revised & Enlarged Edition). Springer, 1999.
# Dhawan S: A glimpse of fluid mechanics research in Bangalore 25 years ago. India: Surveys in fluid mechanics Indian Academy of Sciences (Eds. R Narasimha, S M Deshpande) 1-15, 1982.
# Developments in Fluid Mechanics and Space Technology. (Eds. R Narasimha, APJ Abdul Kalam) Indian Academy of Sciences, 1988.
# Dhawan S: Bird flight. Indian Academy of Sciences, 1991.
# Dhawan S: Aeronautical Research in India. (22nd British Commonwealth Lecture). J. Royal Aero. Soc. 71, 149-184, 1967.
# Special Section on Instabilities, transitions and turbulence. (Ed. R Narasimha) Current Science, 79:725-883, 2000

External links

#Prof. Roddam Narasimha, JNCASR about his professor. [http://www.iisc.ernet.in/nias/sdhawan.htm]
#Prof. Hans Liepmann, Caltech about his student. [http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/EandS/articles/LXV4/obituaries.html]