ISRO Chairman Withdraws Memoir After Controversy Erupts

S. Somanath, the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has withdrawn his Malayalam memoir, Nilavu Kudicha Simhangal (loosely translated as “The Lions That Drank the Moonlight”), following a controversial remark about his immediate predecessor, the renowned scientist K. Sivan.

The controversy erupted after a regional language newspaper reported that Somanath had alleged that Sivan had impeded his career growth at ISRO and had prevented him from receiving key promotions. Somanath later denied the allegation, stating that he had never made such a remark and that he had simply meant that Sivan had appointed another person over him as a member of the Space Commission, which is generally considered to be a stepping stone to the ISRO chairmanship. This had delayed Somanath”s chances of assuming the chairmanship.

The Hindu also reported that Somanath had expressed discomfort with Sivan”s decision not to be explicit about the reasons for the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which had been scheduled to land a rover on the moon in July 2019. The mission was ultimately unsuccessful, and Sivan had publicly attributed the failure to an “inability to communicate with the lander.” However, it was later revealed that a software glitch had been responsible for the failure.

Somanath stated, “That a software glitch was at fault was known only subsequently. However, the crashing of the lander was known on that day itself (September 6, 2019). There was no point in calling it a communication failure… [as Chairman Sivan had described it]. However, every Chairman can choose what they communicate. I believe that whatever success or failure happens should be transparently communicated. I”m not criticizing Dr. Sivan though.”

During the launch of Chandrayaan-3, Somanath had met with Sivan, who was then serving as an advisor to ISRO. Somanath had earlier attributed the success of Chandrayaan-3 to Chandrayaan-2, as Chandrayaan-3 had been developed after making several technical upgrades to Chandrayaan-2. ISRO created history on July 14, 2023, after successfully softlanding Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the lunar surface, becoming the first country to accomplish this milestone.