Thiruvananthapuram, July 28 (IANS): The mood was sombre at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the ISRO unit in the Kerala capital, as the staff on Tuesday paid tribute to former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who died on Monday.

The staff observed a two-minute silence and a condolence statement was later read out.

Kalam was with the Indian Space Research Organisation unit here from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. After he left, he kept coming back to relive his good old days.

"This is a great national loss, particularly for the ISRO community, because he was one amongst us. He was the project director of the SLV3 launch vehicle from which all later rockets of ISRO evolved.

"He was a 'People's President' who believed that the glory of India will be measured by the temples of education, science and technology and ignited the minds of countless students to dream big in life," the statement said.

It said Kalam was an ordinary man with extraordinary achievements.

"Life is finite, but ideas and vision are immortal. Even though he is no more, his vision and ideas are always going to be with us. There are no goodbyes from us, wherever he is, he is always going to be in our heart, inspiring us to fly on the wings of fire in all our future endeavours," the message said.