Nambi Narayanan – Indian Aerospace Engineer
Nambi Narayanan is a renowned Indian aerospace engineer. Nambi Narayanan was in charge of the Cryogenic Division as a senior officer of ISRO. He was born on 12 December 1941 in the village of Nagarokoil in the state of Kerala.


About Nambi Narayanan
Nambi Narayanan is a renowned Indian aerospace engineer. Nambi Narayanan was in charge of the Cryogenic Division as a senior officer of ISRO. He was born on 12 December 1941 in the village of Nagarokoil in the state of Kerala. Nambi Narayanan has been awarded the Padma Bhushan award by the Government of India due to his research. He did his early studies from DVD Higher Secondary School, Nagercoil. Then completed his graduation in Mechanical Engineering from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madras University, Madurai. After studying mechanical engineering in Madurai, Narayanan started his career in 1966 at ISRO. He was technical assistant at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.
Narayanan introduced liquid fuel rocket technology to India in 1970. Narayanan developed liquid propellant motors, first manufacturing 600 kg thrust engines in the mid-1970s and then moving on to larger engines. He developed an engine called Vikas which was used in many rockets of ISRO, including the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The ‘Vikas’ engine helped in missions like Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan.
Vikas was also used in the second and fourth strap-on stages of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle. He Worked with many leading scientists of India like Satish Dhawan, Vikram Sarabhai Dr APJ Abdul Kalam A UR Rao etc. He served ISRO for 35 years. Dr. Nambi Narayanan also wrote his autobiography in Malayalam titled “Ormakalude Bhramanapadham”.
Espionage Charges –
In 1994, he was accused of leaking important defense secrets to two alleged Maldivian intelligence officials, Mariam Rashida and Fauzia Hassan. Nambi and D. Sasikumaran leaked secrets related to highly confidential “flight test data” from rocket and satellite launch experiments, according to defense officials’ statements. He was accused of leaking confidential data worth millions. After the arrest of Kerala Police, Kerala Police kept him in jail for 50 days. In the year 1996, the CBI termed the case as false.
All allegations against Nambi Narayanan was false in the CBI investigation. He was innocent. In 1999, the National Human Rights Commission passed a censure motion against the Kerala government, keeping in mind Narayanan’s career, family, mental and physical torture. He received Rs 1.3 crore as compensation from the Kerala government.