Aerospace scientist Roddam Narasimha passes away

Celebrated aerospace scientist, Padma Vibhushan Prof Roddam Narasimha passed away at 87 at the M S Ramaiah Hospital in Bengaluru on Monday night. He is survived by his wife and daughter.

Prof Narasimha had suffered a brain haemorrhage last week and was shifted to the intensive care unit of the Hospital. The death was declared at 9.30 pm on Monday. The last rites will be conducted on Tuesday afternoon.

A former director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), he had played a key role in the design and development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas.

An authority on Fluid Dynamics, he was also the DST Year-of-Science Chair Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and concurrently held the Pratt & Whitney Chair in Science and Engineering at the University of Hyderabad.

The first student of Sathish Dhawan, Narasimha's research has been chiefly concerned with Aerospace Fluid Dynamics. His extensive studies of transitions in the atmosphere between laminar and turbulent flow, the structure of shock waves and other aspects of temperature has been much heralded in the scientific community.

As Director of the National Institute of Advanced Sciences (NIAS) Narasimha initiated a series of major dialogues on International Security issues with the US National Academy of Sciences and other bodies. In February 2012, he had resigned from his post as the longest-serving member of the Indian Space Commission.

Honoured with the country’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 2013, Prof Narasimha was also the recipient of the Bhatnagar Prize, and the 2008 Trieste Science Prize.

A Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Foreign Associate of both the US National Academy of Engineering and the US National Academy of Sciences, he was a Distinguished Alumnus of both the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).