From its inception in the 1960s, India's national space program - the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - has evolved to become one of the largest in the world.
Host | Matthew S Williams
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/matthew-s-williams
______________________
This Episode’s Sponsors
Are you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/sponsor-the-itspmagazine-podcast-network
______________________
Episode Notes
From its inception in the 1960s, India's national space program - the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - has evolved to become one of the largest in the world. Between now and 2050, they plan to send "vyomanauts" to orbit, build a space station, send crewed missions to the Moon, and create a lunar base.
______________________
Resources
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - Government of India: https://www.isro.gov.in/index.html
______________________
For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
India's Space Program | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams
Episode 85 - Indian Space Program
[00:00:00] The authors acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the
traditional unceded lands of the Lekwungen peoples. Hello, and welcome back
to Stories from Space. I'm your host, Matt Williams. And today, in keeping with
our series on rising stars in space exploration and national space programs,
we're going to be taking a look at India, or as it's known, the Indian Space
Research Organization, ISRO.
In our previous segment, we looked at the history of China and its space
program and how it evolved, and how certain commonalities and similarities
were there between the development of NASA and the Soviet space program,
and how this occurred within the context of the Cold War and was very much
related to the development of nuclear weapons.
But the same is largely true of India, with some caveats and exceptions. For
example, India did not develop nuclear [00:01:00] weapons and did not begin
testing them until the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, like China, there are many
interesting similarities with the Soviet efforts and NASA's efforts to realize the
necessary rocket technology as well as propellants and engine technology.
And conducting launch tests and developing heavier and heavier launch
vehicles with the intention of eventually sending humans to space, but also to
the moon and beyond. And this is the current state of development of India's
national space program. Much like China, they've got some very bold ambitions
for the not too distant future.
And the road that they took to get there, there's a lot of similarities. They
followed a very similar developmental pathway to both the Soviets and NASA
and also China. And if all goes according to plan, they will have a space
program in the coming decades that is likely to rival China's, as well [00:02:00]
as the European Space Agency's, Roscosmos, and NASA too.
So it will be very interesting to see what comes of that, in terms of partnerships,
and also in terms of competition. In any case, to get into the history of the
Indian space program, one first needs to go back to the early 20th century,
which is where space research in India can be traced to through the work of
scientists like Saseer Kumar Mitra, an Indian physicist who conducted ground
based radio experiments in Kolkata, where he used radio waves to probe Earth's
ionosphere and learn more about the layers of the upper atmosphere.And this was followed shortly thereafter by the work of scientists like Sir
Chandra Sekhara, Venkata Raman, and Meghnad Saha. And it is Raman's work
from which we now have the scientific principle known as the Raman effect,
which describes the scattering of [00:03:00] photons by matter and had a major
influence on the emergence of quantum physics as a discipline.
Meanwhile, Saha, he developed a theory of thermal ionization, which relates the
spectral classes of stars to temperatures, which was foundational to how we
classify stars today. And, as I said before, There were certain ties between the
development of nuclear technology in India and its space program. This did not
include attempts to develop long range missiles, as was the case with the
Soviets, Americans, and China.
Nevertheless, both programs, one for nuclear energy with the eventual intent of
weaponization, And space exploration, these did emerge as a common program
to modernize the country and achieve a number of firsts, so as not to be left
behind, and to ensure that India garnered respect as [00:04:00] a modern nation,
a modern state, which of course is very important to any newly independent
country, which India became by 1947.
Nevertheless, their efforts to realize a modern nuclear program began before
this, in March 1944. When Indian nuclear physicist Homi Janhangirbaba
launched India's three stage nuclear power program. And this program consisted
of, first, stage one, the development of a pressurized heavy water reactor,
Followed by stage 2, the development of a fast breeder reactor.
And finally stage 3, the development of thorium based reactors. And this
program led to the first research reactor being developed in India by 1956. And
the first plutonium reprocessing plant by 1964. However, the program would
not reach its ultimate goal until the mid 1990s, by which time India began
developing and [00:05:00] testing nuclear weapons.
In the meantime, a number of important developments happened in India, which
allowed for the coordination of space research. And these happened around
1945 and after, and included Vikram Saralai founding the Physical Research
Laboratory at Ahmedabad. And Homi Bhabha, establishing the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research in Mumbai.
And these institutes conducted studies involving cosmic radiation, which
included particle experiments in the Kolar mines, which had once been
purposed for mining gold, but had been repurposed for neutrino experiments, aswell as studies of the upper atmosphere using high altitude observatories and
airborne instruments.
which were designed to see how cosmic radiation affected Earth's atmosphere,
and how Earth's magnetosphere also interacts with this radiation and filters most
of it out. And then, in [00:06:00] 1950, the Department of Atomic Energy was
founded, with Daba as its secretary, which in turn began providing funding for
space research.
And this included numerous tests that were conducted into monitoring weather
patterns on a global scale and the study of Earth's magnetic field, or
magnetosphere. By 1954, the Aryabhata Research Institute of Observational
Sciences, or ARES, was established in the foothills of the Himalayas. This
institute is still in operation today and specializes in astronomy, solar physics,
astrophysics, and atmospheric science.
And last but not least, in 1957, the Jaipal Rangapur Observatory was established
at Osmania University in Hyderabad, which construction was completed on in
1968 69, which included its 48 inch telescope and two 12 inch telescopes. And
this observatory was a [00:07:00] place where astronomers from all over India
came to conduct photometry and spectroscopy studies of stars, variable stars,
comets, the moon, and the proper motion and velocity of stars, or astrometry.
However, it was 1957, a pivotal year for many nations that decided to get
involved in space. That India's space program really began to come together. It
was during this year that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, which not only
inaugurated the Soviet space program, but inspired the creation of NASA and
the Chinese space program.
By 1962, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, an Indian physicist and astronomer, who
initiated space research and helped develop India's nuclear power program,
Suggested to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that a national space
program for India was needed. In response, Prime Minister Nehru ordered the
creation of the Indian National Committee for Space Research, or [00:08:00]
INCOSPAR.
At this point, all activities relating to space technology and research continue to
function under the auspices of the Department of Atomic Energy. Once again
demonstrating the interconnected nature of India's space program and attempts
to realize nuclear power and nuclear weapons. INCOSPAR began recruiting
people from the Indian ordnance factories in order to leverage their knowledge
of propellants and advanced light materials that would go into building rockets.And it was an ordnance officer, Dr. Holnar Asapura Murthy, who became the
first director of India's first launch facility, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket
Launching Station. It was established in November 1963 in Thumba, near the
southwestern tip of mainland India. And would go on to serve as the head of the
Vikram Sarabhai Space Center.
It was here that Murthy, known as one of the seven pioneers of the Indian space
program, [00:09:00] oversaw the creation of sounding rockets, which were
named Rohini, which began launching from 1967 onwards. These rockets
conducted vital experiments and studies of Earth's upper atmosphere and
marked the beginning of India's attempts to reach space.
By 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi created the Indian Space Research
Organization, or ISRO, which became incorporated in 1972 into the Department
of Space. This was India's first space commission and marked the beginning of
an official national space program in India. During this time, India joined the
Soviet program known as Inter Cosmos.
It was formed in 1967 to assist Soviet allies with space activities. A program for
space cooperation that was formed in 1967 by the Soviet Union to assist allies
and friendly nations with their space activities. Through this program, the first
Indian satellite, named Aryabhata, [00:10:00] was launched into orbit by a
Soviet rocket.
The Soviets would remain the exclusive launcher of Indian satellites until the
late 1970s. It was at this point, after many successful launches of sounding
rockets, that the ISRO began to develop orbital launch vehicles. These efforts
bore fruit when India developed, when India successfully launched the first
Satellite Launch Vehicle 3 rocket, a four stage, all solid propellant vehicle
specifically designed to send small payloads, like communication satellites, to
space.
The development of the SLB 3 was paralleled by the development of the first
SLB launch pad, known as the Sri Harikota Range, located on an island off the
coast of the Bay of Bengal. The station became operational in 1971, and by
2002 was renamed the Satish Dhawan Space Center, a tribute to former ISRO
chairman Satish Dhawan.
It was here that the SLB 3 made its first [00:11:00] launch in 1979, carrying a
Rohini science payload, which consisted of an experimental satellite.
Unfortunately, the launch could not inject the satellite into its desired orbit. In
1980, India managed to successfully deploy a Rohini series satellite into orbit,becoming the seventh country to launch an artificial satellite to low Earth orbit,
after the USSR, the US, France, the UK, China, and Japan.
The Rahimi satellite was also the third Indian satellite deployed to space, the
previous two having been launched by Soviet rockets. Thanks to these
achievements made between the late 60s and early 1980s, China, India, and the
European Union would all go on to achieve great strides in space research and
space exploration in the ensuing decades.
For instance, during the 1980s, India experienced two major developments. This
included their [00:12:00] efforts to develop a medium lift launch vehicle
capable of sending payloads to a sun synchronous orbit. These efforts began in
1978 and led to the development of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or
PSLV, by 1993.
This four stage solid propellant rocket is still in use, servicing the Indian
government and commercial partners. In 1985, the ISRO established the Liquid
Propulsion System Center, which began working on a more powerful engine
known as the Vikas. which is based on the French Viking engine. By 1987,
facilities that were designed to test liquid fueled rocket engines were also
established, as was the development and testing of various rocket engines and
thrusters.
Another noteworthy development was the development of ComSat technology,
which began in the 1980s as part of the Indian National Satellite System. It's
also during this time that the Indian Remote Sensing Program for Earth
[00:13:00] Observation Satellites began, Which would lead to one of the largest
satellite constellations in the world today.
As of July 2023, India has launched a total of 431 satellites for 34 countries. By
the mid 1990s, and with the success of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, work
began on a new geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle, known as the GSLV.
The design of the GSLV called for a three stage rocket powered by cryogenic
propellants.
This would be the first rocket developed in India to do so, which is why
development of the GSLV was paralleled by a project to develop the technology
to store cryogenic propellants. At first, India attempted to obtain the technology
for upper stage cryogenic engines through the GLAV COSMOS program, a
technology exchange program similar to InterCosmos, which was established by
the Russian government after the fall of the Soviet Union.[00:14:00] Unfortunately, these efforts were blocked by the U. S. between 1992
and 1994 on the basis that this technology exchange violated the missile
technology control regime. As a result, India imported KVV 1 engines, which
relied on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen directly from Russia. Which were
used on the initial flights of the GSLV Mark 1.
By 1998, the U. S. imposed sanctions again, in response to India's first nuclear
tests, which were codenamed Operation Shopki. By 1999, as a result of the
Kargil War between India and Pakistan, The U. S. refused to assist India with
the development of global positioning system technology. This prompted the
IRSO to develop its own satellite navigation systems in house, and led to the
Indian National Navigation Satellite System, or IRNSS.
This system is now known as the Navigation with India Constellation, or
NAVIC, [00:15:00] which has since expanded further. Sanctions imposed due
to nuclear testing and border tensions between India and Pakistan expired after
1999. However, the ISRO remained sanctioned for sections of its space program
between 1992 and 2011.
At which point, NASA reached out to the ISRO in the hopes of enlisting their
help in NASA's Moon to Mars mission architecture. These attempts at
cooperation were inspired, in large part, by India's own attempts to realize a
lunar exploration program. This began in 2003 when Prime Minister V. Atal
Vajpayee called for the creation of a robotic lunar exploration program which
was to be followed by a crewed program.
In 2008, India launched its first lunar probe, the Chandrayaan 1 mission. Which
is Sanskrit for Moon Vehicle. This mission achieved some notable firsts, which
[00:16:00] included being the first satellite to verify the presence of water on
the Moon's surface. As the probe revealed, this water was largely concentrated
in the polar regions.
In particular, the South Pole Aitken Basin, which has led to multiple space
agencies planning on establishing habitats there in the coming years. Not the
least of which is NASA's Artemis Base Camp, China's International Lunar
Research Station, And the European Space Agency's Moon Village. By 2013,
the Mangalyaan mission, otherwise known as the Mars Orbiter mission, became
the first Asian spacecraft to enter Martian orbit.
This mission made India the first country to succeed at successfully sending a
probe into Martian orbit on the first attempt. That same year, the ISRO
succeeded in creating cryogenic engines for the upper stage of their GSLVrocket, making India the 6th country to have full launch capabilities. These
efforts also [00:17:00] led to work on a heavier lift launch vehicle in 2014,
known as the Launch Vehicle Mark 3.
This 3 stage medium lift rocket was designed for heavier satellites, and will be
vital to India's future human rated space missions. On July 22nd, 2019, the
Chandrayaan 2 mission launched. This consisted of a lunar orbiter, the Vikram
Lunar Lander, and the Pragyan Rover, all of which were developed entirely in
India.
This mission was responsible for assessing the composition of the lunar surface,
scouting locations of water ice, all of which are in preparation for eventual
crewed missions to the lunar surface. The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter is still
operational in lunar orbit today. NASA And on August 23rd, 2023, the
Chandrayaan 3 mission successfully reached the moon and achieved India's first
soft landing on the lunar surface.
This made India the first [00:18:00] nation to successfully land a spacecraft near
the lunar south pole. It is also notable that this mission orbited alongside Luna
25, a Russian orbiter and lander mission, which attempted to beat the
Chandrayaan 3 lander to the lunar surface. However, the Luna 25 suffered a
failure in orbit and ended up crashing on the lunar surface.
And on September 2, 2023, India launched its first sun probe, the Aditya L1,
aboard a PSLV rocket, which was then inserted at the L1 Lagrange point on
January 6, 2024. This mission has been responsible for observing the dynamics
of the sun's chromosphere and corona, as well as the physical particle
environment around it.
The purpose of which is to study the origin compositions and dynamics of solar
wind and its effects on space weather. In addition, the probe is tasked with
determining the processes that take place in the various layers of the corona that
lead to solar [00:19:00] eruptions. Otherwise known as solar flares, which also
have a profound impact on space weather and can impact space missions and
satellites operating in low Earth orbit and beyond.
Other noteworthy accomplishments in this time include the ISRO setting a new
record for the number of satellites deployed in a single launch. This took place
on February 15, 2017. An Indian launch vehicle deployed 104 satellites to low
earth orbit and overtook the previous record of 37 established by Roscosmos in
June 2014.Meanwhile, efforts to realize India's first crewed space missions began in 2018.
It was then on December 25th that the Indian government announced that the
ISRO's first crewed mission to space would take place in four years. NASA The
Indian government further announced the three astronaut team that would be
sent to orbit, which has since been augmented to four.
This [00:20:00] includes Group Captain Harshananth Balakrishnan Nair, Group
Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander
Subhananshu Shukla, all of whom were recruited by the ISRO from the Indian
Air Force. This was followed by a similar announcement on August 15th by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The launch would coincide with the 75th anniversary of Indian independence.
Unfortunately, delays due to the COVID pandemic and other factors has pushed
this launch date back to 2025. By September of 2018, the sixth annual
Bengaluru Space Expo took place, during which time the ISRO and its
commercial arm, the Antrix Corporation, showcased the spacesuits that India's
first Viaminots would be taking to space.
Biomana being derived from the Sanskrit term Vyoman, meaning sky or space.
[00:21:00] They also showcased the crew escape module that would be taking
the astronauts to low earth orbit, which had been successfully tested in July of
2018. This program for crewed missions, known as Gangayaan, Sanskrit for
celestial vehicle, Only consists of three proposed UNC crewed flights in 2024,
followed by the first crude flight in 2025.
In preparation, two of the astronauts flying above the first crude mission will
train at NASA facilities in preparation for the Axiom mission. Four to the
International Space Station. This private space flight will launch no earlier than
Spring 2025 and will be operated by Axiom Space using a SpaceX crew Dragon
Spacecraft.
In August of 2024, Shubhanshu Shukla was selected to be a member of the
Axiom 4 mission crew with Prashanth Nair as his backup. On June 13th, 2019,
ISRO Chief Sivan [00:22:00] Kailasadha Devu announced India's plans for a
space station in orbit, which would be assembled by 2035. This station would
be a follow up to the Gaganyan space program, and would be known as the
Bharatiya Antariksa Stesang, which literally translated means Indian Space
Station.
Like its predecessors, Mir, the ISS, and the Tiangong Space Station, India's
space station would consist of modules assembled in orbit, Where rotatingcrews would perform vital science experiments and research that will help pave
the way for missions beyond low earth orbit. According to the details released
by Savan at the time, the station would be deployed 5 7 years after the
completion of the Gangayan program, and would be capable of housing crews
of 3 in low earth orbit for 15 20 days at a time.
Like Tian Gong, this station could be a successor to the ISS, which is due to be
retired by 2030, and which India [00:23:00] never signed on to. And then on
October 7th, 2023, prime Minister Modi announced that India would be sending
via AOTs to the moon by 2040. This announcement took place during a review
of the Gangan mission and its progress.
During which it was stated that the station would be a key component to these
future lunar plans. Shortly thereafter, on November 28th, during a symposium
organized by the Indian Society of Geomatics and the Indian Society of Remote
Sensing, ISRO chairman Dr. Sridharas Somanath laid out a provisional roadmap
for India's exploration of the moon, which included a possible lunar base
established by 2047.
So from this relatively brief appraisal, we can see how India's space program
was shaped by many of the same factors that shaped those of the U. S., the
Soviet Union, and Russia, China, the European Space Agency, and other
upstarts, which are now coming into [00:24:00] focus. Much like China and the
S. A., progress began incrementally during the 1950s and 60s.
And by the 1980s, there were several watershed moments that would lead to
some spectacular developments by the turn of the century. While India is
currently lagging behind China's space program by a few steps, it is clear that
they intend to remedy this in the coming years. And become a major power in
space, one that could potentially rival China, and maybe even NASA.
Alternately, they could find themselves becoming partners with China, or
NASA, be it in lunar exploration, or in all manners of space exploration and
research. Needless to say, there's great potential for collaborative work, when it
comes to designing and launching satellites, robotic missions to other planets,
probe missions to orbit, and to the moon.
And the creation of a lunar base. At this juncture, it is unclear if [00:25:00] the
ISRO could become a signatory to the Artemis Accords, or to the ILRS, or
choose to go it alone. But as with so many other developments in space that
have taken place in the past few decades, it is clear that when lunar bases are
established, And crewed missions to Mars take place that also result in thecreation of long duration habitats and facilities, it will be because of multiple
space agencies operating independently or in collaboration with one another.
In short, there's not going to be one or two flags visible in these facilities, but
several. Thank you for listening to this latest installment on the space programs
of the world. Join me soon where we will discuss the origins of NASA, the
Soviet space program, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space
Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, and other
rising [00:26:00] stars like the United Arab Emirates, Israel, South Africa, and
more.
In the meantime, thank you for listening. I'm Matt Williams, and this has been
Stories from Space.