Space is something which we humans are fascinated of from the very beginning. Space is a mystery, where many phenomena, elements and other life forms are wrapped away from us.
Latest developments are leading human beings to explore the uncharted cosmos. The benefits of exploring the cosmos according to some would be to colonize other planets and extract resources of the planet. But this are long term goals.
What about the short-term achievements made and achievements which are possible in the next few years in the domain of space exploration?
ISRO
ISRO is the dominant space agency of India. ISRO’s achievements have been resonating across all corners of the world. ISRO stands for Indian Space Research Organization.
The Space research wing of India was initiated in 1962 as INCOSPAR. INCOSPAR grew and became ISRO in 1969, within Department of Nuclear Energy. In 1972, the government of India set up a Space Commission and DOS, bringing ISRO under it. The establishment of ISRO thus institutionalised space research activities in India. It since then has been managed by DOS (Department of Space. Prime minister is the minister in charge of DOS), which governs various other institutions in India in the domain of astronomy and space technology.
Noteworthy achievements of ISRO
The latest achievement by ISRO is Mangalyan. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan was a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was India's first interplanetary mission and it made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to do so on its maiden attempt.
The cost of the mission was just $57 million US Dollars, compared to NASA’s mars mission, which was attempted in 1998, failed miserably. NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was designed to study Mars from orbit and to serve as a communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space probes. The mission was unsuccessful due to a navigation error caused by a failure to translate English units to metric.
The project costed NASA $217 Million US Dollars.
ISRO’s latest launch was on 26 November 2022, where it launched the PSLV-C54/EOS-06 Mission, launcher type - PSLV-XL. EOS-06 is third generation satellite in the Oceansat series, which provides continued services of Oceansat-2 with enhanced payload capability.
Earnings of ISRO
The organisation successfully launched 177 foreign satellites from 19 countries. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had earned approximately ₹1,100 crore
($US 133,073,072/-) in the last five years from the launch of foreign satellites, Minister for Space Jitendra Singh, told Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Parliament of India) on Thursday in response to a query.
International Cooperations
Following are the Highlights of a few achievements of ISRO through international cooperation
Chandrayaan-1
ISRO’s maiden mission to Moon, the Chandrayaan-1, has been an exemplary example of international cooperation with its international payloads. It has also earned several national and international laurels and was instrumental in the ISRO-NASA joint discovery of water molecules on the moon surface, unattained by any of the previous missions of such nature.
Megha-Tropiques
The Indo-French joint satellite mission called MEGHA-TROPIQUES was launched in 2011 for the study of the tropical atmosphere and climate related to aspects such as monsoons, cyclones, etc. The data products from this satellite are made available to the international Scientific community.
Saral
Another joint mission with France, named SARAL (Satellite for ALTIKA and ARGOS) for studying ocean from space using altimetry was successfully launched on February 25, 2013. CNES provided a radar altimeter instrument called ALTIKA and an onboard relay instrument for the international ARGOS data collection system, while, ISRO provided the satellite platform, launch and operations for this joint mission. The data from the altimeter is currently made available to global scientific community.
Ongoing and future activities
ISRO and NASA are realizing a joint satellite mission called NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) for earth science studies. As part of the Indo-French cooperation, ISRO and CNES have completed the feasibility study on realizing an earth observation satellite mission with thermal infrared imager, named as TRISHNA. ISRO and JAXA scientists are conducting the feasibility study to realize a joint satellite mission to explore the moon’s polar region.
As part of ISRO’s prestigious Gaganyaan programme, the cooperation opportunities with countries and space agencies having expertise in human space flight are being explored. The cooperation activities are focused in astronaut training, life support systems, radiation shielding solutions etc.
Unnati
ISRO has announced an 8-week capacity building programme on nano satellite development, named as UNNATI (UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training by ISRO) as an initiative of UNISPACE+50 (the 50th Anniversary of the first United Nations conference on the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space) . The programme will be conducted at UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) of ISRO at Bengaluru for three years. In the first batch, 30 participants from 17 countries were successfully trained during Jan 15 - Mar 15, 2019. The second batch was conducted during Oct 15 - Dec 15, 2019 and had 30 participants from 16 countries.
Noteworthy Scientists of ISRO
A.P.J Abdul Kalam
A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Former President Of India, is considered as the Rocket Man of India.After graduating from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1960, Kalam joined the Aeronautical Development Establishment of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (by Press Information Bureau, Government of India) as a scientist after becoming a member of the Defence Research & Development Service (DRDS). He started his career by designing a small hovercraft, but remained unconvinced by his choice of a job at DRDO. Kalam was also part of the INCOSPAR committee working under Vikram Sarabhai, the renowned space scientist. In 1969, Kalam was transferred to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) where he was the project director of India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully deployed the Rohini satellite in near-earth orbit in July 1980; Kalam had first started work on an expandable rocket project independently at DRDO in 1965. In 1969, Kalam received the government's approval and expanded the programme to include more engineers.
Kalam addresses engineering students at IIT Guwahati
In 1963 to 1964, he visited NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and Wallops Flight Facility. Between the 1970s and 1990s, Kalam made an effort to develop the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and SLV-III projects, both of which proved to be successful.
A S Kiran Kumar
Aluru Seelin Kiran Kumar is an Indian space scientist and the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation having assumed office on 14 January 2015. He is credited with the development of key scientific instruments aboard the Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan space crafts. In 2014, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for his contributions to the fields of science and technology. Kiran Kumar previously served as Director of Ahmedabad Space Applications Centre.
B. N. Suresh
Byrana Nagappa Suresh is an Indian aerospace scientist. He served as the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram during the period 2003–2007. He is known for his contribution to development of Indian launch vehicles and Space Capsule Recovery Experiments (SRE). Dr. Suresh also served as the founding Director of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram. He retired from IIST in November 2010. Presently he is President, Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), the only premier engineering academy in the Country located at New Delhi from Jan 2015. He is also serving as Honorary distinguished Professor at ISRO HQ.
G. Madhavan Nair
Madhavan Nair is the former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation and Secretary to the Department of Space, Government of India since September 2003 and was also the Chairman, Space Commission. He was succeeded by K. Radhakrishnan. He was also the Chairman of Governing Body of the Antrix Corporation, Bangalore. Madhavan Nair was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, on January 26, 2009. He also served as the Chairman, Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Technology Patna until he stepped down voluntarily due to his alleged involvement in Antrix-Devas deal.
Jayant Narlikar
Jayant Vishnu Narlikar is an Indian astrophysicist. Narlikar is a proponent of steady state cosmology. He developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal gravity theory, commonly known as Hoyle–Narlikar theory. It synthesises Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Mach’s Principle. It proposes that the inertial mass of a particle is a function of the masses of all other particles, multiplied by a coupling constant, which is a function of cosmic epoch. In cosmologies based on this theory, the gravitational constant G decreases strongly with time.
K. Radhakrishnan
Koppillil Radhakrishnan is an Indian scientist. He is chairman of the Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology, having taken the position in December 2014, and is chairman for the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. Radhakrishnan previously served as chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) between 2009 and 2014. He is a life fellow of the Indian Geophysical Union and is also an accomplished vocalist (Carnatic music) and Kathakali artist.
How citizens of India are benefitted by her space programs.
Space programs are a luxury to any nation. Billions of dollars are invested on space programs. Since billions of dollars of public funds are being invested on space programs, citizens expect returns on their investments and the government is obligated to communicate this information with the citizens.
Think of Indians in various walks of life: a fisherman setting out to sea hoping for a good catch; a soldier in remote Siachen in urgent need of medical assistance; a farmer for whom accurate monsoon forecasts are the difference between a bountiful crop and a dismal one; and students in rural India, with lessons beamed into their classroom.
All these disparate characters are connected by the cosmic thread of an Indian scientific organisation that is reaching for the stars, quite literally, and touches the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians every single day.
That agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the BusinessLine Changemaker of the Year – 2020, has burst into the exclusive club of international space research organisations, on the strength of its frugal innovation and indigenous science capability.
Even ATM and stock market operations derive benefits from ISRO’s space tech. Without risk of exaggeration, it is hard to visualise any area of activity that ISRO does not touch.
Catalysing space entrepreneurship
While developing cutting-edge technologies and harnessing ‘frugal innovation’, ISRO has given a platform for entrepreneurs and private partnerships, and has built networks with institutions through technology transfer or as suppliers of crucial systems in the programmes. In this way, it has helped develop sound infrastructure, capabilities and a reliable ecosystem.
More than 500 industries are involved in the development of launch vehicles and satellites. Over 90 per cent of the launch vehicle cost is accounted for by indigenised technology and materials. The PSLV is highly cost-competitive in the lucrative commercial launch market. So much so that the domestic industry has matured and is now venturing into building satellites.
Space and society
The Indian space programme had its grounding in applications to society right from the beginning. Among the first of these was the Indo-US Satellite Instrumental Television Experiment (SITE) programme of 1975-76.
The PFZ bulletins for fisherfolk, developed in the early 1990s, offer arguably the most visible impact of space technology on communities. The information on fish-rich shoals helps fishermen save ₹15,000-20,000 crore a year as they do not have to spend on fuel in search of a catch.
In recent years, fishing boats have even been fitted with a gadget that transmits messages about PFZs in the local languages. Videos on the mobile phone app additionally help the fishermen navigate to the fishing zones.
India’s space technology has focussed on making rapid development in communication, broadcasting, tele-medicine and education, says former ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar.
The real fillip for large-scale applications began in 1983, with the launch of the INSAT series of geostationary satellites. The INSAT series’ purpose was to boost telecommunications, meteorology, broadcasting and search-and-rescue operations.
To get a measure of the impact, remember that in the 1980s, TV broadcasting was confined to just Doordarshan; the service was only in black and white. Colour transmission began in 1982, with the Asian Games in New Delhi. INSAT, with the availability of more transponders of the Ku and S band, increased the range of television offerings — and triggered the birth of the television entertainment industry. Direct to home (DTH) television became real. With the availability of high bandwidth and satellite links, television programmes reached remote corners, including the North-Eastern States and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Three decades on, television has virtually reached every home, with channels in all languages.
Accurate weather forecasts
Thanks to ISRO, weather reporting, cyclone warning and disaster mitigation have undergone a sea change. Given the impetus provided by INSAT and earth observation satellites, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has refined its monsoon forecast and daily weather bulletins to a high degree of accuracy.
In 1977, in the absence of a warning, more than 10,000 people died, in the cyclone that hit Diviseema in Andhra Pradesh. In 2014, by contrast, when Cyclone Hudhud blew into Andhra Pradesh, fewer than 100 lives were lost, thanks to to the early warning, and the precision with which the cyclone path was tracked in real time.
Perhaps the best examples of impactful grassroots application of space technologies relate to the Remote Sensing Satellite programme. Launched in 1988, the INRSS group of earth and resources imaging satellites has generated a wealth of visual data about the country’s resources.
The FASAL project (Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space, Afro-Meteorology and Land-based Observation) plays an important contributory role in agriculture operations. Space technology helps authorities get fast and accurate data about the crop situation. It provides digital data, which can be analysed in real time for crop type, area estimates, conditions, damage and growth. The Mahalonobis National Crop Forecast Centre was also established in 2012.
Popularising science
ISRO also plays an active role in popularising science — and in helping students conjure up audacious dreams of using science for social good. When the Chandrayaan-2 mission got under way, ISRO ran a popular campaign to familiarise students and others with the mission objectives and other interesting insights. It used social media platforms to reach out to larger audiences. That millions of people sat through the night to watch the live launch on July 22 and followed its journey is testimony to the public interest it generated.
In this way, ISRO has rekindled interest in the moon among the youth and has engaged young minds creatively.
At another level, it has catalysed a number of start-ups contributing to various aspects of space technology. Small enterprises are building micro satellites and are even contributing mission-critical technology; they have now set their eyes on bigger satellites and even space travel.
From Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, with entrepreneurial energy increasingly being channelled in exciting space ventures, ISRO is poised to expand the horizons of human knowledge by flying into newer and unknown spaces of the universe, in order to harness technology to serve humanity.
Indian Defence Space Agency
The DSA will be in Bangalore. It will function under the Integrated Defence Staff. Personnel from all the three branches of the Indian Armed Forces will be stationed in the agency. The agency is expected to be fully operational by November 2019.
Role
The DSA will operate systems to protect Indian interests in outer space and will deal with potential space wars. The agency will have the responsibility of developing a space warfare strategy. It works on Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and in areas like space-based tracking systems.
Defence Space Research Agency
The Defence Space Research Agency (DSRA) is the scientific organisation responsible for developing space-warfare systems and technologies for the Defence Space Agency. The DSRA was approved by the Government of India in June 2019. The DSRO is composed of scientists who undertake research and development in close coordination with the Integrated Defence Staff. Various types of Anti-satellite weapon systems are currently under development.
Months before the operationalisation of the Defence Space Agency, India conducted an Anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) test in March 2019. The test was aimed at demonstrating India's anti-satellite capability.
The Indian ASAT programme can be traced back to its BMD program, which began in 1999 in response to threats posed by the Ballistic missiles of Pakistan and China. In 2006 and 2007, India tested its first exo atmospheric interceptor and has developed many interceptors since then. On 18 March 2008, DRDO Chief V. K. Saraswat had hinted that India possessed technology required for an ASAT missile, reiterating it in February 2010. India is known to have been developing an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle that can be integrated with the missile to engage satellites. In April 2012, Saraswat again said that India possessed the critical technologies for an ASAT weapon from radars and interceptors developed for Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme. India had begun work on its ASAT soon after the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test.
As of April 2019, India was working on directed energy ASAT weapons, co-orbital ASAT weapons, lasers and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) based ASAT weapons. The ability to protect space assets from hostile electronic and physical attacks was also being developed by India.
The full potential of space programs is not known to man yet. Exploring planets and creating settlements, utilizing the resources of the planet seems to be the ultimate goal of space programs. But only time can reveal the true potential of this space exploration.
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