Indian missile scientist RN Agarwal passes away

Padma Bhushan awardee and outstanding aerospace scientist Dr Ram Narain Agarwal who was instrumental in the development of Indias longrange missile Agni passed away on Thursday after a brief illnessHe was 83 and is survived by his wife and two childrenDr Agarwal led the countrys ambitious Agni missile programme for over two decades right from its beginning in 1983 as Project DirectorHe inspired the team to successfully test the Technology demonstrator missile in May 1989Thereafter various versions of the missile were developed and inducted into the defence forces Today Agni V the nuclearcapable intermediaterange ballistic missile has the capability to strike targets beyond 5000 kmsDr Agarwal retired as the founder and director of the Advanced Systems Laboratory ASL Hyderabad in 2005He was a distinguished Scientist of the Defence Research and Development Organisation DRDO and worked on the Agni and other missile programmes alongside Dr Arunachalam and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Dr Agarwal played a key role in establishing the reentry technology all composite heat shield onboard propulsion system guidance and control etc for missiles during a distinguished tenure of 22 yearsRN Agarwal the man who guided Indias Agni missile development programme right from its inception in 1983 till 2005 has just passed away The country owes him a huge debt for his technological and managerial leadership Befittingly his contributions were to be acknowledged inhellipmdash Jairam Ramesh Jairam_Ramesh August 15 2024In 1995 he was appointed Programme Director of Agni for weaponisation and deployment of Agni 2 Within 4 years in 1999 Dr Agarwal and team established the new version with roadmobile launch capability too with enhanced strike distance from Agni1In subsequent years the demonstration of the powerful Agni3 missile weapon system has put India into a select club of countries with nuclearcapable missile power of longrange with strengths in indigenously developing all systemsThe Agni missile was the most ambitious of the 5 missiles sought to be developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme launched in 1983 by the Government of India The others were Prithvi Akash Nag and TrishulDr Agarwal won many laurels for his contributions Among these are the Lifetime Achievement Award 2004 for contributions to the field of aerospace and Agni by the Prime Minister the DRDO Technology Leadership Award Chandrasekhara Saraswati National Eminence Award along with PM PV Narasimha Rao and Bharat Ratna M S Subbalaxmi and the Biren Roy Space Sciences AwardHe was conferred the Padma Sri in 1990 and Padma Bhushan in 2000 by the President of IndiaBorn in Jaipur into a traders family on July 24 1941 Dr Agarwal did his Aeronautical Engineering from MIT Guindy and Masters from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore He obtained a doctorate from the University of RajasthanHe was a member of various national academies and delivered lectures on selfreliance and missile technology at various forums He was a fellow of the Aeronautical Society of India and the National Academy of EngineeringThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever