Vikram Sarabhai

Vikram Sarabhai was an Indian physicist and industrialist widely regarded as the founder of the Indian space program. In 1962 he persuaded the Indian government to establish the Indian National Committee for Space Research, which he chaired, and in 1969 he founded the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), serving as its first chairman until his death in 1971. Under his leadership India established the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near India's magnetic equator in 1963 for high-altitude atmospheric research and began the country's satellite and launch vehicle programs, arguing that a developing nation needed space technology not for prestige but for practical applications such as communications, meteorology and resource mapping. He also founded or helped establish more than a dozen other scientific and management institutions in India, including the Physical Research Laboratory and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. India's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, the country's principal rocket and launch vehicle research facility, is named in his honor.