Tapan Misra is a retired Indian scientist who has served as the Director of the Space Applications Centre and Physical Research Laboratory. He has also served as senior advisor to the ISRO Chairman. He is the co-founder & CTO of Sisir Radar.
Wiki/Biography
Tapan Misra was born on Friday, 20 January 1961 (age 63 years; as of 2024) in Rayagada, Odisha. He obtained the first rank in West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam in 1980 and completed a degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1984 at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.`
Jadavpur University, Kolkata from where Tapan Misra graduated
Family
Parents & Siblings
Tapan’s father’s name is Sidheshwar Misra, and his mother’s name is Kamala Misra.
Wife & Children
Tapan is married and has a son named Soumya Misra, who is an engineer designer and entrepreneur.
Career
ISRO
SAC
Tapan started working as a digital hardware engineer at SAC in 1984 on the Quick Look Display System of X-band Side Looking Airborne Radar. He was removed from the office of the Director of SAC and later served as a Senior Advisor to K. Sivan, Chairman of ISRO, in July 2018.
A photo of Tapan Misra (extreme left) from 2010 in which he can be seen with APJ Abdul Kalam, attending a space-related event
German Aerospace Center
He developed an algorithm for the real-time processing of SAR data while working as a guest scientist at the German Aerospace Center in 1990.
RISAT
He was involved in the development of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for RISAT-1 and also developed a series of high-resolution X-band SAR systems for RISAT-2.
Tapan Misra giving a lecture on a space-related event
Oceansat
He was part of the team which developed the multi-frequency scanning microwave radiometer instrument of Oceansat-1 and the Scanning Scatterometer of Oceansat-2.
Chandrayaan 2
He developed highly miniaturised Dual Frequency (L and S band) SAR (DFSAR) for the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter.
SISIR
He is is co-founder & CTO of Sisir Radar along with his son and daughter-in-law who are also part of the startup. The startup is named after Sisir K Mitra (founder of the radiophysics department, at Calcutta University). They specialize in making synthetic aperture radars (SAR), which can be used for military and civilian purposes. ((The Indian Express))
Awards
- Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (2004)
- ISRO Merit Award for his contribution to the development of SAR technology (2008)
- DSc (Hon.) from Jadavpur University (2016)
- Distinguished Alumnus award from Jadavpur University (2017)
Memberships
- He was elected a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics in 2008.
- He is also elected Fellow of IETE and ISRS.
- He chaired CGMS 2018 (Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites) in Bangalore and represented India as Principal to CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) in Paris in 2017.
- He participated as a team member of the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue on Space Cooperation in Washington DC in 2016 and 2018.
Facts/Trivia
- Tapan has seven granted patents, five copyrights, and more than fifty-five papers to his name.
- Tapan has taught at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Jodhpur as an Adjunct Professor.
- Tapan claimed in a Facebook post, titled “Long Kept Secret” in 2021, that he was poisoned with arsenic trioxide in 2017 while he was at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru, during a promotional interview. He was treated at AIIMS and Zydus Cadila Hospital. He claims to be the victim of 2 poisoning attempts in 3 years. ((Hindustan Times))
Tapan Misra’s medical reports from AIIMS
