A distinguished cosmic ray physicist, who fathered and piloted India’s
eminently successful space programmes, Dr. Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai
was born on August 12, 1919 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. After passing the
Intermediate from the Gujarat College, Vikram joined the St. John’s College
under Cambridge University and graduated with Tripos in physics and
mathematics. He was then only 20. When World War II started in 1939, he
returned to India and worked as a research scholar on cosmic rays under
Dr. C. V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. (Cosmic rays
travel at speeds close to the speed of light and collide with atmospheric
particles while entering the earth’s upper atmosphere.) Sarabhai carried out
investigations on cosmic rays at Bangalore, Pune and the Himalayas, in
tropical latitudes and high altitudes, and studied their daily variations; he found that they were
related to the sun’s activity. The studies opened up before him the possibility of intense research in solar and interplanetary physics. He returned to Cambridge on the cessation of war in 1945 and pursued further research at the Cavendish Laboratory; after he got his Ph.D., he came back to India in 1947.Vikram Sarabhai was a Man with a Mission. A visionary, he had set before him exemplary goals; to achieve them, he worked unceasingly with dedicated zeal and determination. His basic goal in life was to use science and technology as instruments for his country’s socio-economic development and make them play crucial roles for the welfare of the common people of India.
Sarabhai founded several institutions, among them the Physical Research Laboratory in
Ahmedabad, which has now grown into a world renowned centre of scientific excellence. In 1962,he was awarded the prestigious S. S. Bhatnagar Medal for research in physics.
He took up the reins of the country’s space research and rocket and satellite launching
programmes on his appointment as Chairman of the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) in 1962. Next year the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was set up in Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram, it being near the geomagnetic equator. The same year, on November 21, the first rocket, was launched from there. He was also instrumental in setting up the Space Science and Technology Centre, later named after him.
Following the premature death of H.J.Bhabha, Sarabhai was made the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in May 1966. In 1969, the Government of India constituted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with Sarabhai as its Chairman.
Sarabhai passed away in his sleep on December 30, 1971. The International Astronomical
Union decided to call the Crater Bessel in the moon’s Sea of Serenity as the Sarabhai Crater.
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