K. Kasturirangan, A meticulous person who helmed ISRO in challenging times

The Hindu

25-04-2025

K. Kasturirangan, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who passed away in Bengaluru, was once known as the 'Chairman with golden fingers' in the ISRO community, G. Madhavan Nair, who had succeeded him to the top post in 2003, recalled on Friday.
Dr. Kasturirangan was a 'very meticulous person' who did an excellent job as Chairman during the nine-year period from 1994 that he was at the helm, Dr. Madhavan Nair told The Hindu.
ISRO carried out a number of missions during this period, which, though not many in number, were all successful. 'It was not luck. He was a very meticulous person, someone who never left anything to chance. He would go into the details of each and every thing, analyse, and make sure all the data were collected. Unless he was fully satisfied he never gave the go-ahead,' Dr. Madhavan Nair said.
An alumnus of the Sree Rama Varma High School in Ernakulam, Dr. Kasturirangan was part of the Indian space programme from its early days. He was Project Director for India's first two experimental earth observation satellites, Bhaskara-I and Bhaskara-II, and later the first operational Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, IRS-1A.
Before all that, Dr. Kasturirangan used to be a research associate at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, in the late 1960s, which is where Dr. Madhavan Nair first met him.
Dr. Madhavan Nair recalls that the space agency was going through a tough phase when Dr. Kasturirangan took over from U.R. Rao as Chairman in 1994.
'The first launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV D1 in September 1993), in the last leg of Prof. Rao's tenure, was not a successful one. So it fell on Dr. Kasturirangan to see to it that the PSLV become a success. Of course, there were other challenges too, like making advanced remote sensing satellites and so on,' he said.
Bigger trouble was brewing in the form of the ISRO espionage case of 1994, when a number of senior scientists were accused of selling space-tech secrets. It had also escalated into a full-blown political controversy in Kerala. Though subsequently declared as fabricated, the case played havoc with the lives of the accused scientists and the morale of the space agency.
Dr. Kasturirangan's predilection to go about things in his characteristic quiet way was on display in his handling of the events, according to Dr. Madhavan Nair.
'He was trying to look at the inner details. He conducted all the reviews and he did the job silently. After making sure that no spying had taken place, he took action, spoke to (then Prime Minister) P.V. Narasimha Rao and made sure that the CBI came into the picture,' Dr. Madhavan Nair said. 'That was his nature, he did it silently and managed the situation well.'
He also came down to Thiruvananthapuram and spoke to the ISRO staff at the Veli and Valiamala units, in a bid to boost their morale, Dr. Madhavan Nair recalls.