NIT-Tiruchi alumnus remembered for the success of Akash missile programs

The Akash surface-to-air missile (SAM) system that has been deployed within the current India-Pakistan hostilities has a Tiruchi connection. The mission’s director Ramprasad Ramakrishna Panyam was a graduate of Chemical Engineering from the Nationwide Institute of Know-how – Tiruchi, of the 1971-76 batch.

Panyam handed away due to an enormous cardiac arrest in 2012 on the age of 58, when he was working because the affiliate director of Defence Analysis and Growth Laboratory (DRDL) in Hyderabad.

His contribution to the success of the Akash missile has drawn consideration from defence specialists.

“The mission was conceived in Eighties, however took over twenty years to succeed, due to digital connectivity issues, and the fully new supplies getting used. Mr. Panyam took over in 2002 when Akash was going through a number of points. He systematically analysed all the issues, related with the customers, and took about two to a few years to carry the mission as much as a stage of business acceptance and manufacturing,” Srinivasan Sundarrajan, former director of NIT-T and a colleague of Panyam on the mission, advised The Hindu on Monday.

NIT-T conferred a posthumous Distinguished Alumnus award on R.R. Panyam throughout its golden jubilee in 2014.

“Whereas newer and extra revolutionary SAMs have been developed indigenously, the Akash stays the pioneering function mannequin, largely resulting from Mr. Panyam’s contribution. I’ve labored intently with him in the course of the mission, and keep in mind his simplicity and humble nature,” stated Mr. Sundarrajan.

The Akash is in the identical class because the U.S. Patriot missile. It’s geared up to destroy targets 25 km away, has a supersonic velocity of 600 metres a second, and might intercept targets such because the cruise missile and unmanned aerial automobiles. Mr. Panyam contributed within the design and improvement of stable gasoline built-in rocket Ramjet for the Akash.

In a 2008 interview with The Hindu, Mr. Panyam had stated that Akash had been cleared by the Indian Air Drive after elaborate person discipline trials on the Built-in Check Vary at Chandipur-on-sea in Odisha.

Mr. Panyam obtained his M.E in Aerospace Engineering in 1978 from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and his Ph. D in Aerospace from Georgia Institute Know-how, Atlanta, U.S., in 1983.  He joined DRDL, Hyderabad, in 1983.