The Indian Space Programme

by Gurbir Singh

  Figure 17‑2 Global Satellite Industry Revenues ($ Billions). Credit Adapted from The Satellite Industry Association Report 2016

  Of the 92 space launches conducted worldwide in 2014, 23 were subject to a commercial agreement. In 2014, ISRO conducted four launches, one of which was commercial.[1027] In June 2014, the launch of SPOT 7 and four other smaller satellites using a PSLV generated $15 million (Rs.100 crore) for ISRO. With that launch, ISRO clocked 40 satellites launched on a commercial or bilateral (inter-governmental arrangements where services rather than money are exchanged) basis. Most of these were nano satellites, with less than 10 kg mass, and only two were sufficiently large to carry a payload with remote sensing capabilities.

  ISRO is generating sufficient income from launch and other services to claim financial self-sufficiency, but it has a long way to go to exploit its potential in the launch services market. In 2017, Google sold its satellite business, Terra Bella, to Planet Labs Inc. a San Francisco start-up that operated a fleet of 60 small satellites providing live high-resolution images from orbit. Terra Bella provides applications and services that exploit data in real-time for commercial application. In 2017, PSLV-C37 launched Cartosat-2D but made the headlines for the 104 satellites launched in one go. Most of the satellites, 88, were for a private US company Planet Labs. ISRO and PSLV is well placed for this small satellite market but the income they generate is low.

  Satellite Class

  Mass Range*

  Femto satellite

  10 – 100 g

  Pico satellite

  < 1 kg

  Nano satellite

  1 – 10 kg

  Micro satellite

  11 – 100 kg

  Mini satellite

  101 – 500 kg

  Small satellite

  <500 kg

  Medium satellite

  501 – 2,500 kg

  Large satellite

  > 2,500 kg

  Table 17‑1 Typical Classification of Satellites by Mass (* There is still some variation in definitions within the industry)

  The successful launch of ISRO's heavy launch vehicle GSLV-Mk3 in June 2017 is a significant achievement for its launch capability. It must now operationalise the GSLV-Mk3. Until that happens, not only will ISRO continue to bear the huge costs of commercial launches of its communication satellites by ESA's Ariane, but its portfolio of commercial services will remain limited. More significantly, it will not achieve one of its key objectives, self-sufficiency.

  Regional Space Power

  Most of ISRO’s commercial clients are geographically distant from India. Singapore, Europe and Canada. Near neighbours, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have typically procured space services from the US, Europe or China but not India. In November 2014, only a few months after coming to office, Prime Minister Modi (Narendra Damodardas Modi, born 1950) initiated a programme to change that. He expressed his willingness for Indian space assets originally designed exclusively for Indian use, be available to the region around India. Addressing the 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Nepal in November 2014, he committed ISRO to design, build and launch a communication satellite for use by SAARC member nations. In addition to providing each SAARC member the use of the communication satellite, he offered to extend the range of the IRNSS footprint for Satnav capability to all SAARC countries.[1028] The inclusion of the foreign minister as a member of the Space Commission also points to the strategic shift that India wants to assert its regional influence.[1029]

  The satellite was launched in May1027 using a GSLV-Mk2 at the cost of $35 million (Rs.200 crore) and making one Ku-band transponder available to each of the participating SAARC nations without charge. Each nation will be responsible for building the supporting ground infrastructure and deciding how the communication capacity is used (i.e. for DTH, VSAT, tele-education, telemedicine, disaster management support or other ).[1030] The plans for an almost 2-ton SAARC satellite with 12 Ku-band transponders did not progress smoothly. Pakistan withdrew from the project citing concerns about the security of its communications going through an Indian satellite. Initially, it had supported the idea and offered financial and technical assistance with the satellite construction. Fearing that Pakistan would want a stake in the project management, India declined. This was as close the two neighbouring space agencies (ISRO and SUPARCO) have ever come to a collaborative space venture.[1031] The interest from Bangladesh and Afghanistan had also waned as they progress with plans for their own communication satellites. In the absence of unanimous agreement in SAARC, India renamed the satellite the South Asia Satellite (also known as GSAT-9) and launched on a GSLV-Mk2 in May 2017. Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, and India will use it for communication.

  International Collaboration

  India has benefitted from its cooperation with many nations along its journey to becoming a successful space faring country. During the Cold War, in the 1960s and 70s, the USSR and US kick-helped to start India’s space programme with equipment, training, rocket motors and satellite launch services. In the 1980s, France helped with liquid engine technology know-how, and in the 1990s, the USSR assisted at least temporarily with cryogenic engine technology. Other nations that have played a key role in India’s space programme include Japan, Germany, the UK and Israel.[1032] In addition to his intellect, Bhabha had the contacts essential for international collaboration, and Nehru, who was committed to developing a science-based self-reliant India, considered such collaboration to be critical. It was also made possible by the deep personal connection between Bhabha and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru that stretched back to Bhabha’s boyhood with the socially connected Tata family.[1033]

  Some space projects rely on international collaboration others (for example, the ISS, Search and Rescue, SBAS and sharing of deep space communication networks when operating interplanetary missions, debris mitigation, climate change monitoring and human missions to Mars) require it. Since the Apollo missions of the early 1970s, no humans have returned. When they do, that too could be a collaborative effort. The International Lunar Decade, an initiative designed to provide a framework for strategically directed international cooperation for a permanent return to the Moon, will be launched on 20 July 2019 – the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.[1034]

  Since 2000, the ISS has maintained a continuous human presence in space made possible by international collaboration facilitated by a complex set of agreements between 15 sovereign nations[1035] Apart from the engineering achievement in building and operating it and the value of the science conducted in orbit, it is the trust and fostering of deeper relationships between the peoples of member nations on Earth is probably the ISS’s greatest accomplishment. The more nations compete and collaborate in sports, arts, music, business and science, the less likely they are to fight on the battlefield.

  India's space assets have allowed it to participate in and contribute to global collaborative ventures. These include international search and rescue (COSPAS-SARSAT), high precision air traffic management (GAGAN), satellite Navigation (NavIC), space debris avoidance (Multi Object Tracking Radar) and soon climate change.[1036] International collaboration is essential to achieve human civilisation's grand ambitions in space. Human missions to establish and inhabit a permanent, sustainable Moon base, to walk on Mars and to visit other bodies of the solar system are complex and expensive undertakings. They will only be possible through international collaboration grounded in science and technology.

  Science and technology underpin human civilisation allowing 7 billion people to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. It was also the scientific and technological capability that facilitated the vast destruction and enormous loss of life and destruction of brutal wars, bloody revolution and ruthless conquest that is also part of human civilisation. It was from the final years of World War II that the UN emerged as an instrument to prevent its repetition. The pressing ne
ed to “learn to live together in peace and harmony” preoccupied the minds of world leaders in the immediate aftermath.[1037] The UN was founded with noble aims, including “cooperate in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character.” Despite its many repeated failures, the UN is still the most powerful instrument the planet has ever seen for uniting all peoples from all nations.

  The progress of human civilisation in the 21st century hinges on cooperation in space. India, representing such a large part of it, is playing an increasingly significant role. The European Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution emerged from national programmes engaging science and technology on a large scale. Developing nations have arrived at that point in their journey to modernise where they, too, are now investing, economically and intellectually, in science and technology and are poised to enter the first world. Economic growth, increased investment and achievements in space are critical if India is to complete its journey from the third world to the first.

  The longstanding tensions between India and China could softened as both nations find themselves on the same side through their BRICS membership. The US and Russian collaboration on the ISS in space has contributed to reducing the likelihood of and perhaps preventing conflict between them on Earth. On Cosmonauts Day 12 April 2016, President Putin in a live call to the ISS, asserted that "in spite of any difficulties that we are encountering on Earth, people are working in space shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand.[1038]

  Humans have not left Earth orbit since 1972. Al Worden, the command module pilot of Apollo 15, was one of only two dozen humans who did and holds the view that “we will go to Mars in the 2030s time frame, and if we are smart we will include the Chinese and Indians not only for the technical expertise but the economics.”[1039] Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to go to space concluded that the next time humans leave Earth, they should do so not as Americans, Indians or Chinese but as people from planet Earth.”[1040]

  Value of Space

  In 1948, British scientist Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) predicted that “once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available… a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.”[1041] That was a decade before Sputnik and two decades before an iconic image of Earth was recorded from the lunar orbit. After what had been a particularly violent year, 1968 concluded with the optimism of successfully completing one of humanity’s oldest dreams. On the first human journey from the Earth to the Moon, the Apollo 8 commander Bill Anders concluded that they went to the Moon but “what we really discovered was the planet Earth.”[1042] The event is widely considered to have initiated the international environmental movement.

  The ideas that led to Yuri Gagarin’s journey to Earth orbit or Neil Armstrong’s walk on the Moon were at the outset fanciful, outlandish and reckless. The veteran ISRO scientist Yash Pal was referring to the same audacious and risky ambition when he said in Hindi “pagalpan hai hum logon meh,” which loosely translates to “there is madness in us all.”[1043] The same apparently irrational logic drives a developing nation to invest in a space programme to address the challenges of poverty. In the past it was slavery, child labour and profound inequality of sex and race that that shamed and undermined the notion of “human civilisation”. Today it is inequality and widespread poverty. Space technology is an integral part of the solution.

  Human civilisation throughout its long history has repeatedly demonstrated that science-based societies provide higher quality and more fulfilling lives for their citizens than those that are not. Benefits of space-borne resources offer a greater potential to transform large developing nations, such as India, than the developed countries from where spaceflight first emerged. Although the Indian and Japanese space agencies, ISRO and JAXA, were established in 1969, the role of Japan’s space programme has been very different to that of India’s.[1044] From the outset, India’s space programme has been deeply intertwined with its ambitious country-wide developmental goals. The bold decisions taken by its founders, Bhabha, Sarabhai, Dhawan and others, demonstrated that the basic needs of undeveloped communities could be met with space technology with a modest financial commitment from the central government.

  Space-based assets provide services that exploit the unique global perspective available only from Earth orbit, not only services, such as early warning systems for tsunami, search and rescue and weather, but also communication, navigation and satellite television that have become critical to the quality of life in 21st-century societies. They also offer something more profound but less tangible, a unique perspective of our place in the universe.

  Chasing a Chimera?

  India's remarkably successful space program is matched by the audacity in the ambitions of its founders. R. Aravamudan was one of the first engineers selected by Vikram Sarabhai to join the Indian Space Program in 1962. He describes the bewilderment of his colleagues when he chose to take up this position. "When they heard of my decision to volunteer, most of my colleagues thought I was mad. Why on earth would I want to sacrifice a career with steady growth prospects to chase a Chimera" (a fire breathing hybrid creature from Greek Mythology - something that does not really exist).[1045]

  Pursuing India’s first nuclear power station in the 1960s, Homi Bhabha had a clear vision of India’s trajectory to development. Developing nations should not repeat the technological steps of developed nations “that is one thing we must not do if we are ever to catch up.”[1046] In the past telephone connections, TV reception and electricity supply came into private houses via vast ground-based networks. Many parts of India and other developing nations have chosen to skip this traditional approach of physical cables stretching across the nation. Homes today have a mobile telephone, a satellite dish for TV and electricity from solar panels on the roof. China surpassed one billion mobile phone users in 2012 and India in 2016. Traditional ground-based infrastructure does not have the agility to scale to meet the increasing demand.[1047] By the start of the next decade, high-speed global Internet access from space will transform communication services, especially for rural areas not served today.[1048] As countries around the world increase their dependency on space-based services, India through ISRO is better placed than most to face the challenges of the coming decades.

  Writing in 2005, Abdul Kalam expressed his vision for India’s objectives between 2005 and 2030. He wanted to see India progress to manned missions to the Moon and Mars, reusable spacecraft, harnessing energy for use in Earth, interplanetary exploration, integrated disaster management and navigation satellites.[1049] About half in Kalam’s list have been largely met. At the outset, they were just as ambitious as ambitious as those that remain. With over a decade to go other developing nations can find India's progress an inspiration.

  The formidable challenges of improving the quality of lives on a national scale are not unique to India. India’s space programme serves as a model for other developing nations faced with similar social problems. Apart from being a role model, India’s space programme has a tangible impact on its neighbouring countries. The footprint of its communication, weather, search and rescue and navigation satellites spills over its national borders. Solutions in the 21st century are guided by the pressing global need to sustain the limited natural resources, minimise the impact of global warming and responsibly use land and sea for food production. In a world that has never been more interconnected and interdependent, the solutions for social development must also be global. Irreversible erosion of natural resources can only be replaced by sustainable development once disparities among nations are addressed.[1050] Around 1.5 billion people of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) live a predominantly agrarian lifestyle making a particularly heavy demand on the environment. It is in these regions where high population density places tremendous pressure on the environment that strong strategies for sustainable management are required.[1051]

  Only space-based observat
ion can provide the coverage required for large scale land management, irrigation, drought mitigation, harvest maximisation and monitoring of natural resources, such as fishing zones, forests, mines and coastal erosion. Long term strategic decisions based on information from space-based assets lead to better decision-making and interventions.[1052] Only space-based assets can bring cost-effective education to large, remote and dispersed populations. The cost of knowledge is high, but the cost of ignorance is higher. Through its space programme, India is fulfilling its tryst with destiny. Throughout human history, progress has relied on exploiting the latest technological innovations. In the past, tools made from stone, iron and steel shaped human progress. Civilisation would not have been possible in the absence of the plough, printing press and the internal combustion engine. Today, it is space technology. From a standing start in 1963, India has demonstrated the power of space-based technologies to transform a nation. Developing countries will remain developing countries unless they engage with modern space technologies.

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  Appendices

  Abbreviations

  AEC

  Atomic Energy Commission

  AAI

  Airport Authorities of India

  ALTIKA

  Altimeter in Ka band

  APPLE

  Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment