History Of The Indian Space Program

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN SPACE PROGRAM - 2

Rocketry and Space in Modern India

After regaining independence in 1947 India focused all its energy in nation building, focused on economic and industrial development fully understanding the key role of science and technology. Indian rocketry was reborn thanks to technological vision of Prime Minster Jawahar Lal Nehru. Prof Vikram Sarabhai took the challenge of realizing this dream. Professor Vikram Sarabhai was an able leader and visionary who gave shape to modern Indian rocketry and space endeavors. As Dr. APJ Kalam said "Many individual with myopic vision questioned the relevance of space activities in a newly independent nation, which was finding it difficult to feed its population. Their vision was clear if Indians were to play meaningful role in the community of nations, they must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to their real-life problems. They had no intention of using it as a mean to display our might".

INCOSPAR (Indian Committee for Space Research) lead by Prof Sarabhai was then part of Tata Institute of Fundamental research (TIFR) (lead by it's director MGK Menon). In 1962 INCOSPAR took the decision to setup Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) at Thumba (Trivandrum also known as Thiruvananthapuram) on the southern tip of India very close to earth's magnetic equator[8] . Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam (now President of Indian Republic) was amongst the initial team of rocket engineer forming the INCOSPAR. The initial team went to America for 6 months training program on sounding rocket launching techniques. Upon launching the first sounding rocket (Nike-Apache) on 21 Nov 1963, Prof Sarabhai shared with his team his dream of an Indian Satellite Launch Vehicle[9].

The Rohini Sounding Rocket (RSR) program to develop indigenously developed and fabricated sounding rockets launched the first single-stage Rohini (RH-75) rocket (32 Kg rocket with 7 Kg payload to ~10 Km altitude) in 1967, followed by a two-stage Rohini rocket (100 kg payload to over 320 Km altitude). Apart from Indian payload, sounding rockets from many other countries (including USA, Russia, Japan, France, Germany) were also lunched from Thumba, as part of mutual international collaboration. TERLS developed infrastructure for all aspects of rocketry, ranging from rocket design, rocket propellant, rocket motor casting, integration, payload-assembly, testing, evaluation besides building subsystems like payload housing and jettisonable nose cone. Fiber Reinforced Plastics composite materials for nosecone were used in early programs at TERLS.

Recognizing the immense socio-economic benefits of space technology in 1969 full steam go ahead was given for launching satellite launch vehicles and large rockets[10], Sriharikota situated on the east coast of south India (100 Km north of Chennai) was chosen as Rocket Launch Station (SHAR RLS) for launching satellite launch vehicles and large rockets to leverage from earths rotational velocity from west to east. On 15 August 1969 INCOSPAR was reconstituted and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was created under Department of Atomic Agency (DEA) to conduct space research and application. Prof Vikram Sarabhai had hand picked a team to realize an Indian Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). The shoestring budget for R&D and space program forced ISRO to seek participation from civilian industry since its early days. In 1972 the Indian Government set up the Space Commission and entrusted Department of Space (DOS) with responsibility for conducting the country's space activities. While ISRO is main developer of launcher and satellite systems, it is complemented by two separate agencies INSAT (Telecommunications) and IRS (Remote Sensing). All of ISRO's commercial and marketing activities are handled by Antrix Corp. Ltd, which was created on November 1992 by ISRO.

Structure of Indian Space Program;

• ISRO was established in 1969 as India's primary space Research & Development organization, responsible for developing launcher and propulsion systems, launch sites, satellites and their tracking networks. (Personnel - 16,800)

• Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. ISRO's single largest facility, near Trivandrum providing the technology base for launcher & propulsion development. (Personnel - 5600)

• Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre. Development branches in Bangalore and Trivandrum are supported by major test facilities at Mahendragiri for wide spectrum of liquid motors, from reaction control system thrusters to the 720kN Vikas and cryogenic engines. (Personnel - 1450)

• ISRO Satellite Centre. Lead centre for the design, fabrication & testing of science, technology and applications satellites. (Personnel - 2400)

• SHAR Centre. The ISRO's orbital launch site and largest solid motor production and test facility. (Personnel - 2400)

• ISRO Inertial Systems Unit. Provides inertial systems & components for satellites and launchers.

• ISRO Telemetry, Tracking & Command Network. Headquartered in Bangalore, ISTRAC operates a network of ground station to provide TTC support for launcher & satellite operations. (Personnel - 460)

• Space Applications Centre. Located at Ahmedabad, SAC is ISRO's applications R&D centre, including communications, remote sensing and geodesy. (Personnel - 2150)

• INSAT Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan, 180km from Bangalore. (Personnel - 295)

• Development & Educational Communications Unit (DECU) at Ahmedabad.