S Kiran Kumar appointed new ISRO chief

A S Kiran Kumar, the director of the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, has been appointed the new head of the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in place of K Radhakrishnan who retired last month.

Kumar, who has a Masters in Electronics from Bangalore University and an MTech in Physical Engineering from Indian Institute of Sciences, will function as Secretary, Department of Space, and chairman of the Space Commission for three years, a government order said.

He joined ISRO in 1975 and worked his way up to become the SAC director in 2012. He will take over from Shailesh Nayak, who had been named the interim ISRO chief on January 1.