India’s Rocket Town
A Trip to ISRO’s Launch Facilities in Sriharikota to Witness a Launch
Sriharikota, the little town famed for its big and impeccable record of rocket launches is situated in an island off the Eastern coast of India. An overnight bus journey away from Bangalore, it is a quaint old town filled with government living quarters and buildings. You can tell they are government buildings because they look much like the Weasleys’ Burrow — so dilapidated that you don’t quite know what’s holding it all up.
I stayed at a friend’s place in the ISRO employee quarters. I couldn’t quite ignore the age of these buildings. The residential apartments still have old school Indian squat toilets with no ventilation, and co-exist with wildlife. Monkeys are the most common visitors, followed by colorful birds with some truly perplexing flora as garnish. The vegetation isn’t exactly green, and Sriharikota is a hot, bleak town.
There are only a handful of accessible restaurants that you can get to in the giant auto (also called dukkad in Hindi speaking states). The auto drivers are very friendly, they drive you back and forth if you’ve forgotten things around the town. And the best part is that these rides are relatively inexpensive. Coming from Bangalore, Rs. 25 for a 5 km ride is peanuts.
Rocket’s aren’t the only things that take to the skies in Sriharikota. This town is also famous for its bird sanctuary. It’s big and covers quite a large area, and has birds painted all over the outer walls, identifying the different species that reside there. Most common are flamingoes, their lithe pink bodies a common theme in artwork throughout the town.
Getting to the SHAR facility is a breeze. The town has white buses run by the Government of India that everyone crams into. There are no tickets, mind you and there are stops all the way along.
The view closer to the launch facilities is quite spectacular. The road is surrounded by salt plains, with many filled with water, on both sides of the road. Birds flock to these plains. From my vantage point inside the bus, I saw clumps of white feathers, gorgeous pinks, some yellows, and silhouettes of hundreds of birds flying.
Once near the launch facility, we were shepherded into an auditorium. The experience of the launch itself was quite underwhelming. Firstly, there was little information coming to the auditorium on the launch.
Secondly, we didn’t get to see the PSLV standing in all its magnificence before a launch. Visitors are not allowed anywhere near the actual launchpad, so we crammed onto the roof of an auditorium, a few kilometers from the launchpad.
We heard the excitement build up as the countdown to the launch trickled over the speakers. And then lift off.
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The sight of the magnificiant machine rising up behind a never-ending line of trees came after a full 20 seconds. It took another half a minute for the sound of the rocket taking off to travel all the way to our vantage point.
It was a deafening roar, and we saw the rocket breathing fire, rise high above our heads, making an arc over to our right, and disappear into infinity.
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