S Somanath was on 1 June 2015 appointed as the Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) with immediate effect. LPSC works under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and is located at Trivandrum, Kerala.

He succeeded K Sivan, who took over as the Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). Before the present appointment, he was an Associate Director (Projects), VSSC as well as Project Director of GSLV Mk-III. He joined VSSC in 1985.

He is an expert in a host of disciplines including designing of launch vehicle and has specialised in launch vehicle systems. He became associated with PSLV Project during its early development phase and was a team leader for the first and second developmental flights of PSLV.

As a convenor, Somanath authored the Project report of GSLV Mk-III (also known as LVM3) during 2000-2002 and joined GSLV Mk-III Project in 2003. Later, he became the Project Director of GSLV Mk-III in 2010.

He is the recipient of many awards and honours, including the Gold Medal from IISc, Bangalore for the Masters Programme and Space Gold Medal from Astronautical Society of India. He has also received the Performance Excellence award from ISRO in the year 2009 and Team excellence award for GSLV Mk-III realisation.