Presently the Director of ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Narayanan will assume the role from S Somanath, who is set to complete his term next week.

A native of Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari, Narayanan has worked on the key rocket launches such as ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and led the centre that designs and develops liquid propulsion systems for the agency.

Dr Narayanan completed MTech in Cryogenic Engineering with first rank in 1989 and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the institute in 2001.

Alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, Dr. Narayanan has about four decades of experience. He joined ISRO in the year 1984.

In 2018, Narayanan became the Director of LPSC. In five years, the centre developed 164 liquid propulsion systems for 41 launch vehicles. It also carried 31 spacecraft missions.

An expert in rocket and spacecraft propulsion, Narayanan was the Project Director for the GSLV Mk III's C25 Cryogenic Project. He guided his team to successfully create the C25 Stage, a key element of the launch vehicle.