Tapan Misra
Tapan Misra is an Indian scientist who was the director of Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Early life. Tapan Misra was born in 1961 in Rayagada, Odisha to father Sidheshwar Misra and mother Kamala Misra. He had qualified the IIT Joint Entrance examination with an all India rank of 85 in 1980 but opted to study at the Jadavpur University. He secured the First rank in West Bengal JEE in 1980. He was awarded J C Bose National Science Talent Search Scholarship (JBNSTS) in 1981. He graduated in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1984 from  Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Career. He started his career as digital software engineer and involved in Microwave Remote Sensing payloads in SAC. He managed system engineering of Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) payload for IRS-P4 during 1995-1999. He is widely known for design and development of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) of the RISAT-1. He steered the development of RISAT-2 series of high resolution X-band SAR system. He wrote an algorithm for real-time processing of SAR data during his stint as a guest scientist in the German Aerospace Agency in 1990. He led the development  of high resolution C-band airborne DMSAR, airborne L&S band SAR and highly miniaturised X-band SAR for Airborne and UAV Applications.He was also associated with development of the multi-frequency scanning microwave radiometer instrument of Oceansat-1 and Scanning Scatterometer of Oceansat-2. He conceptualised and led development of highly miniaturised Dual Frequency(L and S band) SAR (DFSAR) for Chandrayaan 2 orbiter. He served as the deputy director of microwave remote sensing area of Space Applications Centre (SAC) before being appointed as the Director in February 2015. In July 2018, Mishra was removed as the Director of SAC, and was  appointed an adviser to K. Sivan, chairman of ISRO. He also heads the Office of Innovations Management, ISRO, Bangalore. For a brief period he had additional charge of Director, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad from June 2016 to February 2017. He will retire in January 2021. Poisoning claims. In January 2021, Misra claimed through a Facebook post that he was poisoned with arsenic trioxide on 23 May 2017, in a promotional interview at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru. He was treated in AIIMS and Zydus Cadila hospital. The case is under investigation by Indian Security agencies. He also claimed that he had  survived two poisoning attempts in three years. Recognition. He received Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in 2004 and ISRO Merit award in 2008 for his contribution of development of SAR technology. He was elected as Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He was elected Corresponding Member of International Academy of Astronautics in 2008. He is also elected Fellow of IETE and ISRS. He was awarded DSc (Hon.) in 2016 and Distinguished Alumnus award in 2017 by his Alma Mater, Jadavpur University. He chaired CGMS 2018 (Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites) in Bangalore, represented India as Principal to CEOS  (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) in Paris in 2017 and participated as team member of Indo-US Strategic Dialogue on Space Coperation in Washington DC in 2016 and 2018. He also taught at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Jodhpur as Adjunct Professor. He holds seven granted patents, one pending patent. He has five copyrights and more than thirty five papers to his credit.