Nair, who took over as chairman in September 2003, however, is not sitting on his laurels. In another few months, he plans to kick off the Chandrayaan mission, India's unmanned lunar mission. The idea is to, over a two-year period, survey the moon's surface to provide a complete map of its chemical characteristics.

Nair prefers to share the credit and says, "ISRO works as a team to achieve such goals. I have got a fantastic team of engineers and support staff who are highly motivated. This has been inculcated as a part of ISRO culture since the days of Dr Vikram Sarabhai. This makes my life a lot more easier."

Former ISRO chairman U R Rao still recalls how Nair was closely connected with the first two flights of the PSLV, which later became the workhorse for launching India's remote sensing satellites. "He is a dedicated scientist and a great manager. He is one among the selected few who has got the privilege of working with Dr Kalam during his early days after he joined ISRO which was then a part of Department of Atomic Energy. He was fresh from the college after finishing his training at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai," says Rao.

In the current year, the DoS which is also headed by Nair will manage a budget of Rs 4,074 crore. But when Nair joined the space programme in 1967, things were quite different. "There was hardly any foreign exchange. We had to build everything from scratch," he recalls.

The other big achievement during Nair's stint has been the setting up of a training institute, the Indian Institute of Space Technology, for future space scientists. The idea behind setting up the institute, currently in its first year, was to ensure there will always be a pool of trained manpower for high-end space research. Nair doesn't believe in leaving anything to chance.