Tapan Misra

Tapan Misra was born in 1961 in Rayagada, Odisha to father Sidheshwar Misra and mother Kamala Misra. He had qualified the IIT Joint Entrance examination with an all India rank of 85 but opted to study at the Jadavpur University. He has studied Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1984 from Jadavpur University, Kolkata as J C Bose National Talent Search (JBNSTS) Scholar.[1][2][3]

He started his career as digital software engineer and involved in Microwave Remote Sensing payloads in SAC. He managed system engineering of Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) payload for IRS-P4 during 1995-1999.[2][3][4]

He was involved in design for the development of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) of the RISAT-1. He wrote an algorithm for real-time processing of SAR data during his stint as a guest scientist in the German Aerospace Agency in 1990. He was also associated with development of the multi-frequency scanning microwave radiometer instrument of Oceansat-1 and Scanning Scatterometer of Oceansat-2. He served as the deputy director of microwave remote sensing area of Space Applications Centre (SAC) before being appointed as the director in February 2015.[1][3] In July 2018, Mishra was removed as the director of SAC, and was appointed an adviser to K. Sivan, chairman of ISRO.[5]

He also heads the Office of Innovations Management, ISRO, Bangalore.[2][4][6] For a brief period he had additional charge of Director, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.[7]

He will retire in January 2021.[7]

In January 2021, Misra claimed through a Facebook post that he was poisoned with arsenic trioxide on 23 May 2017, when he was in a promotional interview at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru. He also added that the attack might have been carried out by people who have feared the loss of contract from the Indian government due to low cost technology of ISRO.[8] Sources say that Mishra survived brain cancer and has undergone intensive chemotherapy which might be the reason behind the find of arsenic trioxide which is used as a anti-cancer drug.[7] He also claimed that he had survived two poisoning attempts in three years.[7]

He received Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in 2004 and ISRO Merit award in 2008 for his contribution of development of SAR technology. He was elected as Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He was elected Corresponding Member of International Academy of Astronautics in 2008. He holds two granted patents, six pending patents. He has five copyrights and more than twenty five papers to his credit.[2][6]