Countdown for the launch of India’s fully indigenous Geosynchronous Satellite launch Vehicle (GSlV) commenced on Saturday 11 40 am at Satish Dhavan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh, 80 km north of Chennai. The 49.13 meter tall vehicle GSlV-D5, weighing 414.75 tonnes, would deploy GSAT-14, a communication satellite weighing 1982 kg into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) after 18 minutes of its lift-off from the SDSC at 4.40 pm on Sunday.

The payload GSAT-14 boasts of 6 C-Band transponders, six Ku-band transponders, and two Ka-band beacons which would strengthen India’s telecommunication and broadcasting sectors. The transponders would be made available to telecommunication companies for data transfer, direct to home television services, tele education and tele medicine services. The launch comes at a time when DTH operators in the country are hard pressed for transponders to cater to the needs of customers all over India.

Sunday’s GSlV mission is critical as well as crucial for India as the launch vehicle is powered by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine. Though India’s space scientists have perfected the technology to launch earth observation satellites into low earth orbits, the country was at the mercy of European Space Agency for launching its communication satellites weighing 2,000 kg and above into the Geo Stationary Orbit which is 36,000 km away from earth.

India’s efforts to develop an indigenous cryogenic engine which would have helped the country to deploy heavy communication satellites into the GSO was allegedly sabotaged by some officials like TG Sreekumar of the Intelligence Bureau at the instance of Central Intelligence Agency of the USA in 1994-95.

Countries like USA and France feared that if India succeeds in developing the complex cryogenic engine technology, it would eat into their monopoly launch business worth $400 billion per year. Nambi Narayanan and Sasi kumar, two leading ISRO scientists specialising in cryogenic engine technology were humiliated and ousted from the ISRO by Sreekumar and some other IB officials with the active connivance of the local police in 1995 under the pretext of an imaginary spy case. Since then the country’s cryogenic engine programme was in limbo.

The ISRO carried all the heavy communication satellites to the ESA’s French Guiana space port from where the heavy Ariane rockets would put them into the GSO. The ESA charges exorbitant rates for each launch.

Though India has launched seven GSlV missions only two were successful. All except one were launched with Russian built cryogenic engines. India’s attempt to launch a GSlV with indigenously developed cryogenic engine too came a cropper on April 15, 2010. Though ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan had declared on that day that India would launch a refurbished GSlV with indigenously developed cryogenic engine within one year, till date nothing has come off.

Till ISRO shows to the outside world that it can launch heavy lift rockets, nobody is going to give any significance to its other achievements like the Mars and the Moon Missions.

To understand India’s position in the comity of nations with heavy lift rockets, one should take a look at the capabilities of launch vehicles developed by ESA, Russia and China.

The Ariane series rockets of the ESA are capable of launching satellites weighing 6950 kg into the GTO while the Delta IV rockets can put into the GTO satellites weighing 13,000 kg. The long March 5 series built by China is capable of deploying communication satellites weighing 14,000 kg into the GTO which is at a distance of 36,000 km from earth.