The Indian Space Programme

by Gurbir Singh

  78

  GSAT-16

  07/12/14

  Intended to gradually replace the services provided by INSAT-3E, GSAT-16 has 12 Ku-band, 24 C-band and 12 extended C-band transponders. It provides additional communication capacity to meet India's increasing demand for satellite communication. GSAT-16 is located at 55°E with a planned service lifetime of 12 years.

  79

  LVM3-X/CARE

  18/12/14

  ISRO’s latest generation of launch vehicle, Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3), took a 3.7-ton early version of ISRO’s crew capsule to an altitude of 126 km before a splash down in the Bay of Bengal 19 minutes after launch. It was designated the Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE). The capsule was recovered by the Indian coast guard.

  80

  IRNSS-1D

  28/03/15

  Fourth of the seven satellites that comprise IRNSS. IRNSS-1D is located at 111.75°E GSO inclined at 30.5°. It has an expected lifetime of 12 years.

  81

  GSAT-6

  27/08/15

  Designed specifically for multi-media mobile applications, GSAT-6 offers multiple audio and video channels using modern encoding and compression technologies. It delivers a variety of services, including interactive services, such as text messaging, weather information and disaster warning. It is India's second satellite with payload specifically for military use. GSAT-6 uses an innovative 6 m antenna that was deployed once in space. It is located at 83°E and expected to operate for 9 years.

  82

  DMC-3

  10/07/15

  To date ISRO's heaviest commercial payload delivering of 5 satellites to Sun-synchronous orbit. Total payload mass of 1,440 kg consisted of three identical optical earth observation satellites (DMC3-1, DMC3-2 & DMC3-3 - built in the UK but operated by China). An optical earth observation technology demonstrator micro satellite (CBNT-1) and an experimental nano satellite (De-orbit Sail).

  83

  TeLEOS-1

  16/12/15

  Launched six satellites owned by Singapore into a 550 km circular orbit inclined at 15° to the equator. TeLEOS-1 is the primary satellite used for Earth Observation weighing 400 kg. The other five include micro-satellite; VELOX-II (13 kg) 6U-Cubesat technology demonstrator; Athenoxat-1, a technology demonstrator nano-satellite; Kent Ridge-1 (78 kg), a micro-satellite; and Galassia (3.4 kg) 2U-Cubesat from Singapore Universities.

  84

  Astrosat

  28/09/15

  India's first science-only mission in Earth orbit. Astrosat is a multi-wavelength space telescope designed to observe the universe in ultraviolet, X-ray and optical wavelengths. Astrosat is a joint project between several Indian institutions and two international (Canadian Space Agency and the University of Leicester in the UK) institutions, which will collaborate over its five-year mission.

  85

  GSAT-15

  11/11/15

  Like GSAT-10, GSAT-15 is intended to help meet the increasing demand for satellite transponder capacity. It has 24 Ku-band transponders and is the third satellite to carry a GAGAN payload, after GSAT-8 and GSAT-10. GSAT-15 carries a Ku-band beacon as well. This allows ground antennae to accurately point towards the satellite. It is located at 93.5°E and has an expected lifetime of 12 years.

  86

  IRNSS-1E

  20/01/16

  Fifth of the seven satellites that comprise IRNSS. IRNSS-1E is located at 111.75°E GSO inclined at 28.1°, identical to but 180° out of phase with IRNSS-1D. It has an expected lifetime of 12 years.

  87

  IRNSS-1F

  10/03/16

  Sixth of the seven satellites that comprise IRNSS. IRNSS-1F is located at 32.5°E. It has an expected lifetime of 12 years.

  88

  IRNSS-1G

  28/04/16

  Last of the seven satellites that comprise IRNSS. IRNSS-1G is located at 129.5°E. It has an expected lifetime of 12 years.

  89

  RLV-TD

  23/05/16

  Sub-orbital test flight of ISRO's Reusable Launch Vehicle Launch Technology Demonstrator.

  90

  Cartosat-2S

  22/06/16

  Cartosat-2s was accompanied by 19 co-passenger satellites from the US, Canada, Germany and Indonesia, as well as two satellites (SATHYABAMASAT and SWAYAM) from Indian universities/academic institutes. The total weight of all the 20 satellites was about 1,288 kg. Cartosat-2 is designed to operate for five years.

  91

  ATV-D02

  28/08/16

  Follow-up flight from the 2010 ATV-D01, but with active twin scramjet engines mounted on the back of the second stage. Once the second stage reached the desired conditions for engine start-up, necessary actions were initiated to ignite the scramjet engines, and they functioned for about 5 seconds. After a flight of about 300 seconds, the vehicle splashed down in the Bay of Bengal, approximately 320 km from Sriharikota but was not recovered. It was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota.

  92

  INSAT-3DR

  08/09/16

  INSAT-3DR joined other ISRO weather satellites in GEO (INSAT-3A, INSAT-3D and Kalpana). It is equipped with a high resolution (infrared and visible) camera and a SARSAT transponder. A Data Relay Transponder receives meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic signals from Earth-based sensors located in remote uninhabited locations.

  93

  SCATSAT-1

  26/09/16

  SCATSAT-1 carries a similar payload as Oceansat-2. A scatterometer (microwave radar) is used to measure wind speed and direction to predict and monitor cyclones. SCATSAT-1 has a solid-state recorder of 32 GB capacity and is designed for an operating life of five years. SCATSAT-1 was one of eight payloads, two of which came from Indian academic institutions and five from other countries. This group of 304 kg in total was placed in the higher orbit of 720 km. It was the first time that ISRO used a single PSLV to deliver satellites to two different orbits.

  94

  ResourceSat-2A

  07/12/16

  A remote sensing satellite with similar objectives as its predecessors, Resourcesat-1 and Resourcesat-2. It has three key payloads: a LISS-4 camera with a resolution of 5.8 m operating in the visible and near infrared wavelengths, a lower resolution LISS-3 and an Advanced Wide Field Sensor. Resourcesat-2 orbits the Earth 14 times every day and returns to the same land/sea mass after 24 days.

  95

  Cartosat-2

  15/02/17

  Cartosat-2 at 714kg was launched along with 103 smaller satellites. With a total mass of 1378k. The smaller satellites consisted of two ISRO Nano Satellites (INS-1 and INS-2), USA (96), The Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1), Israel (1), Kazakhstan (1) and UAE (1). With this single launch, India achieved a record of the most satellites launched at one time.

  References

  * * *

  [1]Chapter 1

  . Technically, only V2 was propelled by a rocket engine. V1 was a cruise missile propelled by a pulse jet engine.

  [2]. Perhaps, this ‘scramble for India’ was in the mind of Otto von Bismarck when he organised the Berlin Conference, aka ‘The Scramble for Africa’, in 1884. It was designed to agree on the boundaries of the Congo Free State but came to symbolise the division of the whole African continent. The greed, haste and the arbitrariness with which the national boundaries were fixed by Europeans in India, Africa, and the Middle East continues to shape the geopolitics of the 21st century. Michalopouslos, Stelios and Elias Papaioannou. 2011. The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa. NBER Working Paper Series. No.17620. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w17620.pdf

  [3]. The British East India Company (also known as the Honourable East India Company) is the largest commercial operation that has ever existed, but it was not alone. Other European nations, including Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal and Sweden, too, had East India Companies.

  [4]. Watson, William E. 2003. Tricol
or and Crescent: France and the Islamic World. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. P13.

  [5]. The Governor General was the head of the British administration in India.

  [6]. Haroon, Anwar. 2013. Kingdom of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation.

  [7] Lovell, Sir Bernard. 1979. In the Centre of Immensities. First British edition. London: Hutchinson. P130

  [8]. Graves, Donald. 1996. Sir William Congreve and the Rocket’s Red Glare. Alexandria Bay, NY: Bloomfield. P8.

  [9]. Sir William Congreve (1772–1828). Jeremy Norman’s History of Science.com. Retrieved from http://www.historyofscience.com/pdf/Congreve-archive.pdf

  [10]. Agrawal, Lion M. G. 2008. Freedom Fighters of India. Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. P277.

  [11]. James Dalrymple, a descendant of the acclaimed Indian historian William Dalrymple, was among those captured. Dalrymple, William. 2004. White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in 18th-Century India. New edition. Harper Perennialia. P191.

  [12]. Narasimha, Roddam. 1985. Rockets in Mysore and Britain, 1750–1850 A.D. National Aerospace Laboratories. P9. Retrieved from: http://www.nal.res.in/pdf/pdfrocket.pdf

  [13]. Ibid., P11

  [14]. Ibid., P11

  [15]. Haroon, Anwar. 2013. Kingdom of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation. P300.

  [16]. Agrawal, Lion M. G. 2008. Freedom Fighters of India. Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. P279.

  [17]. This was repeated on a much larger scale a century and a half later as the allies (the USSR, UK and the US) scoured Germany for its technical and engineering innovations in aviation and rocketry. Most of the recovered V2 rockets went to the US and USSR.

  [18]. Becklake, E. J. and P. J. Turvey. Congreve at the Rotunda. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. Volume 40. P291.

  [19]. This term is not in common use today but refers to a senior management role, someone with financial and quality responsibilities. Perhaps, the equivalent today would be a Chief Executive Officer.

  [20]. Werrett, S. 2009. William Congreve's rational rockets. Notes & Records of the Royal Society 63 (1): 35–56.

  [21]. Sir William Congreve (1772–1828). http://www.historyofscience.com/pdf/Congreve-archive.pdf

  [22]. Narasimha, Roddam. 1985. Rockets in Mysore and Britain 1750-1850 A.D. National Aerospace Laboratories. Retrieved from: http://www.nal.res.in/pdf/pdfrocket.pdf.

  [23]. Narasimha, Roddam. 1985. Rockets in Mysore and Britain 1750-1850 A.D. National Aerospace Laboratories. Retrieved from: http://www.nal.res.in/pdf/pdfrocket.pdf. Table 4 on page 28 describes these combinations.

  [24]. Gunpowder and black powder are made from similar ingredients (Potassium Nitrate, Sulphur and Carbon) but are not identical. Gunpowder is fine and pure. It explodes when heated or struck. Black powder is coarse and burns when ignited generating smoke.

  [25]. Narasimha, Roddam. 1985. Rockets in Mysore and Britain 1750 -1850 A.D. National Aerospace Laboratories. Retrieved from: http://www.nal.res.in/pdf/pdfrocket.pdf. Table 3 lists costs for individual components.

  [26]. Bjerg, Hans Christian. August 2008. “To Copenhagen a Fleet”: The British Pre-emptive Seizure of the Danish Norwegian Navy, 1807. International Journal of Navel History 7(2). Retrieved from http://www.ijnhonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Bjerg.pdf.

  [27]. Graves, Donald. 1996. Sir William Congreve and the Rocket’s Red Glare. Alexandria Bay, N.Y.; Bloomfield, Ont.: Museum Restoration Service.

  [28]. Braun, Wernher von. 17 July 1969. Pioneers of a New Age. The New York Times, Section C.

  [29]. Ciancone, Michael L. 2010 (Ed.) History of Rocketry and Astronautics. American Astronautical Society. P53.

  [30]. During the 1930s, many amateur rocketry groups were established around the world, and they conducted basic rocket test flights. One, for example, was in Manchester, Northwest England. http://astrotalkuk.org/2012/03/27/episode-50-26th-march-2012-manchester-first-rocket-scientists/

  [31]. Gruntman, Mike. 2007. From Astronautics to Cosmonautics. Booksurge Publishing.

  [32]. Rao, U. R. 2013. India’s Rise as a Space Power. Delhi: Cambridge University Press India Pvt Ltd. P47.

  [33]. Sternfeld, Ari. 1937 (Revised edition 1974). Introduction to Cosmonautics. Moscow: ONTI.

  [34]. Gruntman, Mike. 2007. From Astronautics to Cosmonautics. Booksurge Publishing.

  [35]. Braun, Wernher von. 17 July 1969. Pioneers of a New Age. The New York Times, Section C.

  [36] Singh, Gurbir. 2011. Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester: A Smile That Changed the World? Astrotalkuk Publications. P14.

  [37]. Ibid., P14

  [38]. Rogers, Lucy. 2008. It’s ONLY Rocket Science: An Introduction in Plain English. New York, NY: Springer. P9.

  [39]. “Novosti nauki i tekhniki: neuzheli ne utopiia?”. Izvestiia VTsIK. 2 October 1923.

  [40]. Siddiqi, Asif. June 2004. Deep Impact: Robert Goddard and the Soviet ‘Space Fad’ of the 1920s. History and Technology 20(2). Retrieved from http://epizodsspace.no-ip.org/bibl/inostr-yazyki/history-and-technology/2004/2/siddiqi_goddard_space_fad.pdf. Tsiolkovskii’s publications contributed to a wider public awareness within the Soviet society of the possibilities of space travel.

  [41]. Ford, Brian. 2013. Secret Weapons: Death Rays, Doodlebugs and Churchill’s Golden Goose. Osprey Publishing. P143.

  [42]. The US government had adopted the policy of not permitting ‘ardent Nazis’ into the country as many were deemed security risks, and at least, some were implicated in war crimes. The applications of German citizens desiring to go to the US were sent by the US Army to the US State Department where they were marked ‘Ardent Nazi’ and rejected or ‘Not Ardent Nazi’ when the applicant’s skills were deemed useful for the US national interest. The term ‘paperclip’ came from these applications.

  [43]. Cornwell, John. 2004. Hitler’s Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil’s Pact. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

  [44]. Burnett, Thom. 2005. Who Really Won the Space Race? Uncovering the Conspiracy That Kept America Second to the Russians. Collins & Brown. P63.

  [45]. Oscar Holderer came to the US along with the second batch of German rocket engineers after the initial group with von Braun. Holderer worked on the wind tunnels used to develop Saturn V for the Apollo programme. Retrieved from http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/05/oscar_holderer_last_of_wernher.html

  [46]. Siddiqi, Asif A. 2010. The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957. First edition. Cambridge University Press. P177.

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  [48]. Bizony, Piers and Jamie Doran. 2011. Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin. Walker Books. P186.

  [49] .Conversation between Natalya Koroleva and the author in London. 14 July 2011. http://astrotalkuk.org/2011/07/25/yuri-gagarin-statue-in-london/

  [50]. Neufeld, Michael J. February 2002. Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility. German Studies Review 25 (1): 63.

  [51]. The V2 campaign started in September 1942. By then Germany was on the retreat. Had it been introduced earlier, this new “super” weapon could have had a profound impact in the direction of the war. https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/remembering-wernher-von-braun-his-100th-birthday

  [52] Parkinson, B. (Ed.) 2008. Interplanetary: A History of the British Interplanetary Society. British Interplanetary Society. P50

  [53]. Space Chronology. (n.d.) Boundary of space breached for the first time. Retrieved from http://www.spacechronology.com/1942.html.

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  [55]. Ford, Brian. 2013. Secret Weapons: Death Rays, Doodlebugs and Churchill’s Golden Goose. Osprey Publishing. P143

  [56]. Burnett, Thom. 2005. Who Really Won the Space Race? Uncovering the Conspiracy That Kept America Second to the Russians. Collins & Brown. P77.

  [57]. I
bid., P77

  [58]. Burnett, Thom. 2005. Who Really Won the Space Race? Uncovering the Conspiracy That Kept America Second to the Russians. Collins & Brown. P92.

  [59]. Spangenburg, Ray, and Diane Kit Moser. 2009. Wernher von Braun, Revised Edition. Infobase Publishing. P80.

  [60]. Burnett, Thom. 2005. Who Really Won the Space Race? Uncovering the Conspiracy That Kept America Second to the Russians. Collins & Brown. P98.

  [61]. Telephone conversation between Reg Turnill and the author. 3 November 2011. Also see http://astrotalkuk.org/2013/02/15/episode-61-reg-turnill-on-wernher-von-braun/

  [62]. Crowley, I. F. and J. R. Trudeau. 2011. Wernher von Braun: An Ethical Analysis. Retrieved from https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-121811-161339/unrestricted/von_Braun_IQP_12_20_2011_bw_final.pdf

  [63]. Siddiqi, Asif A. 2010. The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957. First edition. Cambridge University Press. P224.