Prof. Satish Dhawan was an Indian rocket scientist who was born in Srinagar, India. Dhawan was a graduate of the University of the Punjab in Lahore, now in Pakistan, where he completed a Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics, a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Arts in English literature. In 1947, he completed a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and an aeronautical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology followed by a double PhD in mathematics and aerospace engineering under the supervision of his advisor Hans W. Liepmann in 1951.. He is considered by the Indian scientific community to be the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India and one of the most eminent researchers in the field of turbulence and boundary layers.

He succeeded Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme, as Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation in 1972. He was also the Chairman of the Space Commission and Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Space. In the decade following his appointment he directed the Indian space programme through a period of extraordinary growth and spectacular achievement..

Even while he was the head of the Indian space programme, he devoted substantial efforts towards boundary layer research. His most important contributions are presented in the seminal book Boundary Layer Theory by Hermann Schlichting.

He was a popular professor at the Indian Institute of Science, located in Bangalore. He is credited for setting up the first supersonic wind tunnel in India at IISc. He also pioneered research on relaminarization of separated boundary layer flows, three-dimensional boundary layers and trisonic flows.

Prof. Satish Dhawan carried out pioneering experiments in rural education, remote sensing and satellite communications. His efforts led to operational systems like INSAT- a telecommunications satellite, IRS – the Indian Remote Sensing satellite and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle that placed India in the league of space faring nations.

Following his death in 2002, the Indian satellite launch centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, located about 100 km north of Chennai in South India was renamed as the Prof. Satish Dhawan Space Centre.