India in space: No dream is too big for us

With the sixteenth consecutively successful launch of India’s smaller rocket, the country’s space programme is poised to take a huge leap, by soon launching Indian astronauts in space on an Indian rocket launched from Indian soil, so it seems no dream is too big for India in space.

Space fairing is a risky business and certainly not meant for the faint hearted only nations and companies that have deep pockets and an abiding interests can hope to harness the full potential of the immense opportunities that space has opened up. India is among six countries that has end to end in-house capabilities in fabricating satellites and launching them into space. Within the next one year ISRO is now planning 5 rocket launches to with as many big Indian satellites.

India’s is a national space programme with the tax payer supporting the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with over a US$ 1 billion annually, still the promise and potential is huge and the government needs to continue supporting this effort till such time as the Indian industry is mature enough to take on some of the tasks like those associated with assembly line type of commercial launches.

The budgets with which the ISRO works is almost 17 times lower than that of the American space agency, but India’s achievements are no less, surprisingly it was left to India’s maiden mission to the moon Chandrayaan-1 to bring back clinching evidence that the moon is not parched, scores of human landings since 1969 were not able to unravel this mystery. No trifling achievement for an institution like ISRO that is still listed on the technology denial regime of western nations.

With 10 remote sensing satellites in space, India’s is the largest constellation of civilian eyes in the sky in the world, this comes with capabilities to map every car parked on any street anywhere in the world thanks to the three sub-meter resolution capability mapping satellites of the CARTOSAT series. The day and night viewing ability even in cloudy skies presented by the Radar imaging satellite lets the country keep an eye on its hostile neighbours like never before.

India’s space programme was and is still meant largely for Earth observation, so remote sensing and using space capabilities to harness them for use of the ‘aam aadmi’ occupy much of ISRO’s efforts, finding water in far off places; helping fisherman locate schools of fish in open oceans are just some of the flagship efforts. Making available high resolution images obviously at a price for infrastructure developments like roads, telecom networks and weather forecasting are a big money spinner for ISRO and the appetite for these will only grow.

With a constellation of 11 communications satellites, the largest such in Asia-Pacific. The huge boom which the country has seen in television coverage may not have been possible but for the country’s very own INSAT’s that come with cheap transponders. The highly networked banking infrastructure; automatic teller machines (ATMs) and the many share trading terminals all depend on secure and reliable connectivity through satellites The sectors that will depend more and more on space technology are only likely to increase, with sun rise industries being the ones which will make use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) based approaches to navigation solutions.

ISRO’s efforts at commercially fabricating whole satellites for foreign partners ran into trouble when last year its satellite called W2M, manufactured in Bangalore for a European consortium failed soon after the launch. Other places where ISRO has encountered hurdles is in the mastering of the heavy duty launcher, the Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV), half the flights of this larger rocket have failed including the disaster earlier this year when the home made cryogenic engine packed up within a few seconds. This vehicle can place 2000 kilogram class of communications satellites in orbit and its more advanced avatar the GSLV-Mark III which is still under development will help launch 4000 kilogram class of satellites. To bring down launch costs, ISRO is also developing re-usable launch vehicles.

India’s maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1 has returned so much scientific goodies including the life giving message that the moon is moist. This startling discovery came about even though Chandrayaan-1 was the cheapest mission to go the moon in decades, now the excitement is so high that a whole new generation of interplanetary missions are on the anvil. A revisit to the moon this time with a lander and rover is planned for 2013; a mission to study the sun called Aditya is cooking; a fly by mission to an asteroid is being considered; and scientists are already nurturing dreams of sending an unmanned mission to Mars within a decade.

But, the defining moment for India’s space programme will come when ISRO sends humans into space, a massive project worth Rs 12,400 crores is already awaiting government approval. ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, says once the approval comes within seven years they will be ready to hoist two-three Indians on a weeks sojourn to zero gravity on an Indian space ship. But, flying astronauts is expensive and very risky, so ISRO will have to justify to the country that such an expense is worth undertaking. Jingoistic justifications have been proclaimed by India’s capable aeronautical engineers, a dispassionate and thread bare debate will be helpful to seal the need for having this capability.

So far, India’s modest investments in space has resulted in huge dividends with a recent study suggesting that for every one rupee invested in ISRO the returns for the country have been two rs, this cost benefit ratio may have held true when the aspirations were also limited. Now with the Indian space community wanting to explore the universe some deft balancing will have to be undertaken so as not to loose focus on India’s core competence of Earth observation, while boldly going where no person has gone before. Which ever way, exciting times lie ahead for India in space, a dream worth nurturing.

(The writer is co-author of book Destination Moon: India’s quest for moon, mars and beyond. Views expressed are personal.)

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