Synopsis The external panel was chaired by space and aeronautical expert Prof. Roddam Narasimha, whose key insights into the aerodynamics aspects paved the way for subsequent successful flights of the rocket. Roddam Narasimha Bengaluru: When India's two successive Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) missions failed in the late 1980s, the then ISRO Chairman Prof. Satish Dhawan constituted internal and external committees to review the programme. The external panel was chaired by space and aeronautical expert Prof. Roddam Narasimha, whose key insights into the aerodynamics aspects paved the way for subsequent successful flights of the rocket. "Today, when we talk of success of PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) and GSLV Mk III (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle), we owe it to important inputs that the Prof. Narasimha committee gave", former ISRO Chairman K Kasturirangan told on Tuesday. Narasimha, a Padma Vibhushan awardee and a former Director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), died at a private hospital here on Monday at the age of 87.