Google celebrates father of ISRO Vikram Sarabhai

Google is celebrating the 100th birthday of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Dr Vikram Sarabhai was an award-winning Indian physicist, industrialist, and innovator and is fondly remembered for the establishment of ISRO.

Dr Sarabhai established the Indian National Committee for Space Research in 1962, which was later renamed to ISRO. This led to the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in southern India, which had its first successful launch on November 21, 1963. His dream of an Indian satellite was realized when Aryabhata went into orbit in 1975.

Dr Sarabhai was born in Ahmedabad on August 12, 1919. He attended the Gujarat College before travelling to England to earn his doctorate at Cambridge.

"There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation,” said Dr Sarabhai following the launch of Russia’s Sputnik satellite. “To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose… We must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society," he remarked.

He also founded many important institutions in his homeland, such as the Physical Research Laboratory (when he was just 28 years old), the Indian Institute of Management, and the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology. He also served as chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission.

Dr Sarabhai's commitment to science education led to the Community Science Centre in Ahmedabad, which now bears his name. A crater on the moon was named in his honour in 1973. Earlier this summer ISRO launched the Chandrayaan-2 mission in hopes of making India the fourth country to land on the moon. The Vikram lander is scheduled to touch down on the lunar surface on September 7 this year.

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