“There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.” – Vikram Sarabhai, father of India’s space programme.
ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organisation is the Indian agency for space exploration whose objective is to harness science and technology for national development whilst using space science research and exploration of the cosmos to bolster the nation’s communication, technology and military capabilities. As a result of the relentless efforts of ISRO, the Indian space programme ranks among the top 5 in the world, with India boasting a significant spatial presence.
Recently, Jitendra Singh, MoS for the Department of Space, while responding to a Parliamentary question in the Rajya Sabha stated that India will be launching 25 foreign satellites in the year 2016-17, with 12 of these 25 satellites coming from the USA, 4 from Germany, 3 each from Algeria and Canada while 1 each from Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
For a space agency that was formed in 1969 and undertook the launch of India’s first satellite, Aryabhatta, just 6 years later with Soviet collaboration, ISRO has come a long way in the last 40 years.
Mangalyaan, India’s first mission to Mars, was a resounding success and turned all heads toward ISRO as among many other achievements, it was the least expensive mission to Mars till date costing just about $75 million. Not only was it the least expensive mission, but also made India the first country in the world to succeed on its first attempt. ISRO’s one of only three space agencies to have a currently operational Mars mission, NASA and the ESA being the other two.
Among many other successful missions, ISRO received accolades for its Chandrayaan mission, which was India’s first self developed and operated lunar probe. The PSLVs are one of the most reliable launch vehicles for small to medium range satellites. Chandrayaan 1, which was India’s first lunar probe, carried 5 Indian payloads and 6 foreign payloads, from NASA, ESA and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency, which were carried free of cost. More recently, India self developed a Cryogenic engine, which a very few counties can boast of. Antrix, ISRO’s commercial arm, which was incorporated into the agency in 1992, boasted of revenues of about $20 billion in 2014-15.
India’s satellite programme began with majorly civilian objectives at the outset, such as remote sensing and broadcasting. Today, India has the largest contingent of remote sensing satellites in the world. ISRO is also responsible for developing the IRNSS – Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, India’s own version of the GPS for strategic as well as civilian purposes, after the setbacks from relying on American location services during the Kargil war in ‘99. Six of the seven intended satellites for the programme are already in place.
There was a range of scepticism at first about the viability of a developing country like India spending money of space research and exploration, but today, nobody can deny the indispensable role that ISRO has played in the Indian story. Today, all of India’s landmass is connected by satellite TV. Not only TV, through a vast communication network, ISRO has enabled services such as broadband connectivity to reach out to remote villages. All this and more has been done on a stringent budget by reusing technologies which were discarded as “useless” by other nations. Today, ISRO is looked as a reliable agency for carrying out foreign launches. Thus, after some context, it is not difficult to understand the vital role ISRO has played in India’s leap onto the global stage. After all, it’s just rocket science.
