ISRO — Journey to the dreams

Chetan jannu
Nov 8 · 5 min read

1969

Republic India was 20 years old and was struggling to establish itself economically and politically. It was expanding its horizons into technology and innovation and as a result
Air India — Indian Commercial Airlines,
BARC — Bhabha Atomic Research Center,
ISRO — Indian Space Research Organization

and many more started evolving.

While USA and Russia were already well established in their space programs launching satellites and sending people to Moon, India has just entered the game with loads of impossible dreams and hopes.

2013

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), is a space probe orbiting Mars, was launched on 5 November 2013 by the ISRO. It is India’s first interplanetary mission making it the fourth space agency sending probes to Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA and ESA. 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.

1970–1980's

Aryabhatta, Bhaskara (named after ancient Indian mathematician-astronomers), Rohini were built entirely in the country and launched with Soviet assistance successfully. They were carrying experimental payloads and weights not more than 35Kgs (77 lbs).

1980–1990's

India aimed to build its own Satellite Launching Vehicles without external help but failed twice. Back then, building these vehicles out of citizen’s taxes and not succeeding was discouraging to the country’s further efforts.

1990–2000's

Two more failed attempts during this decade was a major setback for India’s space dreams and ISRO could not afford another failure. The missions were led by an aerospace scientist, Abdul kalam (who also served as President of India from 2002–2007). India saw its first success in launching PSLV — Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and it was India’s most reliable launch vehicle for the next 20 years!

Payload comparision of India’s Satellite Launch Vehicles.
Payload comparision of India’s Satellite Launch Vehicles.
Size comparison of various India’s space launch vehicles

2000–2010

This is considered as the golden phase of ISRO with 95% success in their launches. India went on to build rockets that can carry heavy payloads with more power and launched many satellites for various purposes including scientific experiments to military needs. ISRO’s PSLV not only proved that it was capable of carrying its own satellites but also gained confidence from rest of the nations globally. Many countries including Israel, Germany, France launched their satellites with the help of ISRO.

In 2003, Kalpana Chawla, India’s first woman astronaut who made it to space with the help of NASA. Unfortunately, we lost her along with fellow astronauts in Columbia disaster during her second mission.

In 2008, with Chandrayan 1, India became the fourth nation to place a flag on the moon. It was an un-manned moon mission to launch a satellite to Moon’s polar orbit and surface impactor probe to the lunar surface. The orbiter was successful, but probe lost its connection after hitting the lunar surface. This mission was a huge success as the Orbiter carrying NASA’s instrument was able to capture thermal image of the Moon.

Thermal image of Moon captured by NASA’s Moon Mapper instrument carried by Chandrayaan

Interesting comparisons — The Chandrayaan 1 mission costed about 80 Million USD which is 0.02$ / mile which is way less than my cab ride from train station to my home i.e 0.24$ / mile. Budget of Animation film WALL-E is 180 Million USD. These are not Apple — Apple comparisons but are aimed to tell how cheap this mission costed.

Un manned mission to place a flag on Moon

2010–2013

India’s ISRO caught world’s attention by successfully placing 104 satellites of the USA, England, Singapore, Germany, Israel, France and many African countries in single rocket!

In 2013, Mangalyaan, India’s mission to Mars, is one of the cheapest interplanetary missions ever undertaken. It is, without doubt, a considerable achievement.

Interesting comparisons — Cost of India’s Mangalyaan mission is $74m where as cost of Nasa’s Maven Mars mission $671m.

They’ve kept it small. The payload weighs only about 15kg. Compare that with the complexity in the payload in Maven and that will explain a lot about the cost — says Britain’s Prof Andrew Coates.

Of course, that reduced complexity suggests it was not scientifically capable as Maven, but India has been smart in targeting some really important areas that will complement what others are doing.

A great 5-minute video explaining how MOM made it to Mars. Let’s see —

In 2019, Chandrayaan 2, India’s second mission to moon was a huge success with just the orbiter. It was a partial failure with the rover’s landing as it failed to soft land on Moons North polar region just 330 meters away from lunar surface. Almost there!

Future missions and Indian Space Startups

2020

Adityayaan 1 — a spacecraft mission to study the Sun is planned to be launched by April 2020.

Shukrayaan 1 — The Indian Venusian orbiter mission is a planned orbiter to Venus by the ISRO to study the atmosphere of Venus. It will be launched sometime after 2020.

2021

Gaganyaan — is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the basis of the Indian Human Spaceflight Program. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people and planned to launch sometime around 2021.

2024

Chandrayaan 3 — The Chandrayaan-3 will be deployed in 2024 for future Moon exploration.

SkyRoot

This space tech startup by former ISRO scientists claim that it can put small satellites in orbit within a week. They were awestruck by what SpaceX pulled off — from failing the first three launches to consistently landing a huge rocket booster. It proved what a startup with great conviction, right vision, and the right team could achieve in a decade.

Relation between the Weeknames and celestial bodies

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