Dr. S. K. Shivakumar (17 March 1953 – 13 April 2019) was an Indian scientist from Karnataka state who worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) centres for over 40 years. He is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He worked on all satellites produced by ISRO starting from 1976-2017. He was the Mission Director of the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Satellites.
He is called the Father of Deep Space Network as he was the project director for the development of the 32-metre (105-ft) dish antenna of the Indian Deep Space Network which is used for telemetry for missions such as Chandrayaan-1, India's first lunar exploration mission, and Mangalyaan, India's first interplanetary mission. He was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India, in 2015.
He was the Director of the Karnataka Science and Technology Association (KSTA) until his untimely demise in April 2019. At the time, he was working on a project to distribute satellite models to schools for exhibition and awareness purposes. He believed this brought him closer to society, particularly the youth and students, which he could not accomplish as the Director of ISAC where he was able to make state-of-the-art operational classes of satellites. Surprisingly, he went on to rate that as one of his most satisfying moments next only to his achieving the IDSN!
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