UVCE-ISRO Expert Lecture Series: Lecture 6 | Reliability and Quality Assurance by Mr Prakasha Rao

The Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering UVCE presents
UVCE-ISRO Expert Lecture Series: Satellite Communication
Lecture 6: Reliability and Quality Assurance for Space Systems
Date: 16th January 2023
Time: 2:45 PM
Venue: Sir M Visvevaraya Senate Hall, UVCE.
*About the speaker: *
Mr Prakasha Rao P J V K S retired as Outstanding Scientist in Indian Space Research Organization - ISRO, and was serving as Director - Space Infrastructure Programme Office, at ISRO Head Quarters, Bengaluru just before retirement reporting to Chairman - ISRO. He briefly held the additional charge of Director - DSRQ (Directorate of Safety, Reliability and Quality) at ISRO HQ. Prior to this he has served as Programme Director LEO & Planetary Platforms and Deputy Director - Spacecraft Reliability and Quality Area at UR Rao satellite centre. Earlier, to this Mr. Prakasha Rao served as Project Director-GSAT-9 (South Asian Satellite), GSAT 17 and GSAT 18 communications satellites and also Project Director for GSAT 6 spacecraft which had flown the 6m Unfurlable antenna, the largest on board antenna built by ISRO. He has also served as Associate Project Director of meteorological satellite INSAT 3D and Group Director - Systems Reliability Group at ISAC.
After completion of his M.Tech in Electronic Instrumentation from REC - Warangal, he has joined ISRO Satellite Centre during May 1985 in Quality assurance Division and in his 37 years of experience at ISRO, Mr. Prakasha Rao has worked in diverse areas of Satellite Systems such as - Test & Evaluation of sensors / control systems / digital systems and power systems. He also contributed as Project Manager/Deputy Project Director (Product Assurance) for INSAT-2E/TES and IRS-P5 spacecraft, and Head - Parts, Materials and Process Division at ISAC.
He was on deputation for about two years to Boeing Satellite Systems - USA: formerly known as Hughes Satellite Systems as technical consultant for Malaysian Communication satellite operating agency MEASAT, in realization of MEASAT-3 Spacecraft. As Product Assurance Manager of W2M spacecraft - ISRO’s first commercial spacecraft supplied to European operator - Eutelsat in collaboration with M/s EADS - Astrium, France, he handled the customer interface on PA aspects. He has participated in several launch campaigns of ISRO satellites for launch by Ariane Space from French Guiana, in various functional roles.
Mr. Prakasha Rao is the chairman of PMC (Project Monitoring Committee) for 75 students satellite mission announced by Prime minister as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav and being realized by Indian Technology Congress Association. He has conducted Product Assurance workshop at RCI-DRDO and was a member of faculty at several ISRO internal training programmes, ECIL, courses on Satellite Engineering at IISc etc. He also served as the chairman of organizing committee for “UNNATI” programme, which is a commitment given by India to United nations about training of personnel from developing countries on Nano satellites. He was member of Space generation task Group and ISRO Strategy group formed to brainstorm on the potential future programmes of ISRO.Mr. Prakasha also served as a member of ‘Committee for Promotion of Space activities” formed by ISRO as an interim arrangement, before formal INSPACE mechanism was put in place.
Mr. Prakasha Rao is awarded ISRO merit award "In recognition of his meritorious contribution to Indian Space Programme" and is a National Governing Council member of “ISSE” Indian Society for Systems Engineering. He served as executive committee member of Astronautical Society of India for two terms. Considering his significant contributions, he is admitted as a Fellow of the ‘Astronautical Society of India’.