ISRO / U R Rao Satellite Centre | Bengaluru

Project Manager - Gaganyaan Human Spaceflight Programme

• Strategised a $60M spacecraft systems portfolio within the $600M Gaganyaan programme; defined the integrated architecture and delivery roadmap, synchronising 100+ engineers across 20+ teams and 6 ISRO centres
• Led India's technical engagement with NASA and ESA on crewed docking, shaping proposal architecture and coordinating multi-session negotiations, culminating in the 2025 ISRO-ESA cooperation agreement
• Benchmarked international human spaceflight programmes to redesign Gaganyaan's test strategy; built the case for a 44% reduction in test-cycle time, accepted at a high-level programme review
• Drove digital transformation of programme change governance, implementing Siemens Teamcenter to establish decision protocols and achieve 100% traceability across mission-critical systems
• Led a six-month cross-functional optimisation campaign that reduced orbital mass by 10%, resolving a mission-critical constraint within fixed safety and schedule boundaries

Project Manager - NISAR (NASA-ISRO satellite) | Product/Design Lead - Chandrayaan-2 Moon Rover

• Owned four mission-critical products for the Moon rover on Chandrayaan-2, India's $118M Moon landing mission, from concept through flight clearance, leading a 5-member team across design, fabrication, qualification and delivery
• Turned a critical rover anomaly into an optimisation opportunity; led root-cause analysis and redesign that cut mass 6%, saved ~$120K and protected the launch schedule
• Owned a mission-critical product on the $1B NASA-ISRO NISAR Earth-observation satellite, translating bilateral mission requirements into product decisions; successfully deployed on orbit in 2025
• Increased actuator production capacity 5x with no new capital investment by identifying process bottlenecks and redesigning production flow; delivered 18 qualified units with 100% on-orbit success across five missions
• Led make-vs-buy and industrialisation strategy for a $1.8M, 12-satellite programme, selecting and negotiating with industry to move production into the private sector

Quality Assurance Engineer - Spacecraft Mechanisms & Integration

• Held quality assurance and flight-clearance responsibility across 10+ strategic satellite programmes (>$240M mission portfolio), including the Mars Orbiter Mission, India's navigation constellation, defence and science missions
• Cleared 19 solar-array deployment systems for flight with zero quality failures and 100% on-orbit deployment success; participated in three launch campaigns
• Led risk identification and corrective-action governance through FMECA/FTA, non-conformance reviews and launch-readiness assessments, preventing unresolved quality risks from progressing downstream

• Led the multi-year technical engagement with NASA & ESA that resulted in the May 2025 ISRO-ESA Intent of Cooperation
• Contributed to India's Human Spaceflight Programme vision for Viksit Bharat 2047
• Established India's first digital Configuration Control Board for human spaceflight as Member Secretary, creating 100% change traceability and a scalable governance mechanism
• First Prize, Power Subsystem category, IEEE SPACE 2024
• First Prize, Satellite Technology Day 2017, URSC
• First Prize, Hindi Technical Seminar 2023
• 6 peer-reviewed publications 2015-2026, including ESMATS 2025 (European Space Mechanisms and Tribology Symposium)
• Designed the ISRO Spacecraft Mechanisms Catalogue, converting know-how from ~200 successful deployments into a reusable knowledge asset

• B.Tech (Aerospace Engineering), Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, 2008-12

• General Management Programme for Aerospace and Aviation Executives (GMAE-09), IIM Bangalore and Toulouse Business School, France, 2023-24
• Project Management, Centre for Continuing Education, IISc Bengaluru, 2019
• French Language A1, Centre for Continuing Education, IISc Bengaluru, 2017
• Vibration and Noise Control, Centre for Continuing Education, IISc Bengaluru, 2015
• Structural Analysis and Design Optimization, Centre for Continuing Education, IISc Bengaluru, 2014

• Reviewed a human-spaceflight startup pitch under IIMA Ventures, evaluating technology readiness, business model and go-to-market strategy
• Participated in the INSEAD Venture Competition (IVC-2024), winning $1,000 in AWS credits
• Life Member, INSARM (Indian National Society for Aerospace and Related Mechanisms), national level
• Science outreach, Science in Action programme for National Science Day 2023