It could be a strange coincidence. November 21, 1963 too was a Thursday. As the Sun set in the Arabian Sea, a Nike Apache sounding rocket took off from Thumba Equatorial Rocket launching Station (TERlS), an obscure fishing village near Thiruvananthapuram , announcing India’s entry into space science.
It was a rocket built by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and had carried a sodium vapour payload from France. It was tracked by a radar from the USA.
“The MINSK computer and the MI-4 helicopter used for range clearance came from the then USSR. TERlS was a testimony to the charisma of Vikram Sarabhai who could persuade USA and erstwhile USSR, bitter enemies of the Cold War to come together in the service of science,” reminiscences PV Manoranjan Rao, visiting scientist, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. Thursday happens to be the golden jubilee of the launching of the first-ever rocket by Indian space scientists.
Interestingly, India’s space odyssey began on a bicycle. The photograph of a technician carrying the sounding rocket from the assembly line to the launch pad on a bicycle caught global attention. There was yet another picture which the world watched in bewilderment, a bullock cart ferrying the Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment (APPlE). The bullock-cart was the only metal-free transportable platform available for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) engineers to conduct the electromagnetic compatibility tests before flying it to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) spaceport in Kourou on June 19, 1981.
India perfected its space technology with bicycles and bullock cart. Over the decades, the country developed heavy lift launch vehicles and communication satellites making telephones, mobile phones, satellite television, tele-medicine and tele-schools, part of our daily life. listeners of All India Radio may remember the weather forecasts of the 1960s and 1970s.
“It may or may not rain in the next two days,” was the standard weather forecast of the Indian Meteorological Department in those days. Thanks to ISRO’s remote sensing and earth observation satellites, the IMD is capable of forecasting cyclones, tsunamis and heavy downpours well in advance.
ISRO is getting ready for the December launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite launch Vehicle (GSlV) powered by an indigenously-developed cryogenic engine. Attempts to launch GSlVs with indigenously-developed cryogenic engines came a cropper in the past, making the December launch critical and crucial for the country’s space programme.
Since this technology has been eluding India, most of our communication satellites have to be flown to Kouro to deploy them in the Geo Stationary Orbit, at a distance of 36,000 km from the earth. The ESA charges exorbitant rates for launching heavy satellites into the pre-determined orbit. Sources in ISRO said the ESA charges more than $20,000 per kg to deploy satellites into their orbits. Since communication satellites weigh more than 2000 kg, it is anybody’s guess how much the ISRO pays ESA.
The major achievement of ISRO during the last five decades of its launch vehicle development programme has been the standardisation of the Polar Satellite launch Vehicle for deploying earth observation satellites into low earth orbits of 800 km to 900 km. But the moolah lies in heavy communication satellites as they only can meet the country’s thirst for more transponders for its telecommunication needs.
K Radhakrishnan, chairman, ISRO himself has said that there is a severe shortage of transponders.
“It is only if we are capable of launching our own communication satellites, we will be able to address the shortage of transponders. We are very clear about being down to earth. Our thrust is on space application. While countries like USA, Russia and China are after human space flights and International Space Stations, ISRO is on a capacity augmentation drive,” the ISRO chairman had said in 2012.
The thrust and focus on capacity augmentation have been given a silent burial as nobody can say anything about the shortage of transponders and the necessity to speed up the cryogenic engine development programme. While India celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launching of the sounding rocket, the Russians are busy developing Angara, a super heavy space rocket capable of deploying a spacecraft weighing 100 tons into the low Earth Orbit.
Indian space science programme, which began on a bicycle and progressed on a bullock cart, is still light years away from NASA, the Roscosmos Space Agency of Russia and the Chinese Space Agency. “The ISRO scientists are yet to get over the shock and fear caused by the spy case of 1994 which sabotaged the country’s cryogenic engine programme. Since the sleuths of the Intelligence Bureau had threatened all those who were pursuing research in cryogenic engine development programmes, the younger generation is afraid to venture out to that field,’ said a space engineer who specialises in cryogenic engine technology.
The question being asked by ISRO scientists is whether they would be able to cross the threshold limit and perfect the cryogenic engine technology which would enable them to bring down the cost of access to space from the present day $20,000 a kg to $10,000 a kg. But the dreadful memories of the reign unleashed by the likes of RB Sreekumar are still fresh in their minds.
