engineering

Tapan Misra

Tapan Misra is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tapan Misra rather than just read about it. In short: Tapan Misra (born 20 January 1961) is an Indian scientist who has been the Director of Space Applications Centre and Physical Research Laboratory in ISRO. He later became Senior Advisor to the Chairman, ISRO.

Key takeaways

Tapan Misra belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tapan Misra to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tapan Misra from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tapan Misra (born 20 January 1961) is an Indian scientist who has been the Director of Space Applications Centre and Physical Research Laboratory in ISRO. He later became Senior Advisor to the Chairman, ISRO. In 2022, Misra founded a space-tech startup called Sisir Radar, which manufactures Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR), a technology that he pioneered in ISRO, for drones and satellites. Sisir Radar will make synthetic aperture radars (SAR) that can be fixed on drones for imaging smaller land areas.

Early life 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 in 1980 but opted to study at the Jadavpur University. He secured the First rank in West Bengal JEE in 1980. He was awarded J C Bose National Science Talent Search Scholarship (JBNSTS) in 1981. He graduated in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1984 from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Career He started his career as a digital hardware 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. He is widely known for design and development of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) of the RISAT-1. He steered the development of RISAT-2 series of high resolution X-band SAR system. 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 led the development of high resolution C-band airborne DMSAR, airborne L&S band SAR and highly miniaturised X-band SAR for Airborne and UAV Applications.He was also associated with development of the multi-frequency scanning microwave radiometer instrument of Oceansat-1 and Scanning Scatterometer of Oceansat-2. He conceptualised and led development of highly miniaturised Dual Frequency (L and S band) SAR (DFSAR) for Chandrayaan 2 orbiter. 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. Tapan Misra demitted the office of the Director of SAC and was appointed a Senior Adviser to K. Sivan, Chairman of ISRO in July 2018. He also headed the Office of Innovations Management, ISRO, Bangalore. For a brief period he had additional charge of Director, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad from June 2016 to February 2017. He superannuated from ISRO in January 2021. In January 2021, Misra revealed through a Facebook post that he was poisoned with arsenic trioxide on 23 May 2017, in a promotional interview at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru. He was treated in AIIMS and Zydus Cadila hospital. The case is under investigation by Indian Security agencies. He also said that he had survived two poisoning attempts in three years. He leads a startup company SISIR Radar based in Kolkata, specializing in developing miniaturized SAR systems and other varieties of ground radars.

Recognition 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 is also elected Fellow of IETE and ISRS. He was awarded DSc (Hon.) in 2016 and Distinguished Alumnus award in 2017 by his alma mater, Jadavpur University. He chaired CGMS 2018 (Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites) in Bangalore, represented India as Principal to CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) in Paris in 2017 and participated as team member of Indo-US Strategic Dialogue on Space Cooperation in Washington DC in 2016 and 2018. He also taught at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Jodhpur as adjunct professor. He holds seven granted patents. He has five copyrights and more than fifty five papers to his credit.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tapan Misra

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tapan Misra claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tapan Misra before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tapan Misra ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tapan Misra

In research: Tapan Misra appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tapan Misra in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tapan Misra is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, 20th-century Indian engineers, Engineers from Odisha, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tapan Misra outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tapan Misra in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tapan Misra means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tapan Misra out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tapan Misra in simple terms?

Why does Tapan Misra matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tapan Misra?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tapan Misra.