With the successful launch of the India’s multistage GSLV rocket carrying the indigenous communication satellite Insat-4CR on September 2, India has now become capable of launching satellites into Geo Synchronous Orbits with the only other countries in the world with this capability being US, Russia, European Union, China and Japan.

India with this launch has now not only lifted its DTH(Direct To Home) television dreams to new heights, but at the same time has successfully entered the multi-billion dollar industry of launching satellites into geo-stationary orbits, and India has affordable cost as its major advantage. This launch has enabled India to use its own launch vehicles from now onwards to launch all its communication satellites, there by also saving millions of dollars!

Communication satellites are placed in Geo-Stationary orbits so that they are always available to the control centre, because a satellite at an height of about 35000 kilometers will always be visible to a fixed point on earth as if it is stationary there, and the control center at that fixed point can always have its antenna pointed towards the satellite. In fact three such satellites can be used to cover the entire earth due to the great height they orbit at!

As mentioned by ISRO , the launch of GSLV has has demonstrated the operational reliability of GSLV as well as reiterated the end-to-end capability of ISRO to not only build state-of-the-art communication satellites, but also to launch them using the indigenously designed and built launch vehicle. into any type of orbit.

Al though this launch of GSLV used Russian made cryogenic engines for the final upper stage, from next launch onwards GSLV will be using indigenous Indian cryogenic engines built by Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Thiruvananthapuram in South India.

Cryogenics – A deep freeze story of India

Remember that when Russia wanted to transfer the cryogenic technology to India, America pressurized Russia against it, and the result is that today India has developed its own cryogenic technology and will be using it from the next launch of GSLV.

Sometimes I wonder what if the the human scientific knowledge had started evolving just now and if India had refused to transfer the knowledge of zero to America, then they wouldn’t have even been able to do simple mathematics properly

In fact India was never affected by technological restrictions in its space missions till the cryogenic episode occurred, because India always depended on indigenously built technology for space explorations ever since 1957 when the father of Indian Space Programme, Vikram Sarabhai convinced the then Indian government to start funding for space research.

But because of close Indo-Soviet relations when Russia agreed to provide cryogenic technology to India, the Indian research organizations stopped their research on this technology. This was one place where Indians thought of importing technology, instead of reinventing the wheel, especially when the wheel was ready to be shipped. But then came the American pressure on Russia against the supply of this technology to India, on the flimsy grounds of preventing proliferation, while it is common sense for any person with knowledge on missiles that cryogenic engines are a rarity in ballistic missiles, because the liquid oxygen of cryogenic engines boils off causing ice formation making it necessary to fuel missiles just before launch which is not practical in case of missiles, but makes sense in case of rockets! Launch of missiles is in a military sense and the launch date is not known, where as rockets/satellite launch vehicles are planned well ahead for a launch.

America also imposed sanctions against ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) in May 1992. And that was it, ISRO decided no more dependency on external technology and started developing its own cryogenic technology. In the mean time Russia, the good friend continued to supply fully built cryogenic engines. The first stage of Indian made cryogenic engine was successfully tested within six years of the sanctions, in 1998!

And today we are here with our own cryogenic technology. America might impose sanctions on India, in spite of the fact that a lot of the technology developed in America itself is because of many Indians who are living in America! But can they impose sanctions on brains (that are functioning within India)? Sanctions against innovating and thinking?

I many a times make fun with my friends saying India has so much of talents abundantly available that we even export them to countries like America ;)

The lesson to be learnt in the cryogenic episode is that never again depend on external technology! Let us not think of building our own technologies as reinventing the wheel, let us instead make it inventing a better wheel! There is always a better way to do the same thing.

Super Computers

Take for instance the case of super computers. When America denied sales of Supercomputer to India, we had C-DAC set up to build our own supercomps and today India is one of the very few countries today which has its own indigenous tera flop super computers, the other countries being US, Japan, Israel and China! And what’s more? We did it a better way which is more cost effective than others using Massive Parallel Processing! Today India is an exporter of supercomputers! The Indian supercomputer series is named Param meaning supreme in Sanskrit.

Chandrayaan – The Mission to Moon

And now? India is planning to launch its deep space ambitions with a satellite launch planned next year to Moon! Called Chandrayaan-1 , ISRO will launch a satellite into lunar orbit using its PSLV launch vehicle. Chandrayaan-I will also contain two payloads from NASA! The wheel of time always keeps coming one complete circle ;)

What’s more? ISRO has also planned Chandrayaan-II for 2010 using GSLV, in which it will send a rover to moon, a vehicle that will wander on the surface of moon for about a month to collect scientific data and material. The design of this moon rover will be based on MIP (Moon Impact Probe) of Chandrayaan-I which is a 29-kg instrument that will detach itself from Chandrayaan-I, descend some 100 km and crash land on the moon. IIT Kanpur is also designing a robot called SmartNav for Chandrayaan-II. The robot will walk on the surface of the moon doing experiments and collecting data. Note that no country has till today sent a two legged robot to any place outside earth!

AVATAR – Indian Gateway to Space Tourism

Anything else? Yes! Indian research organizations DRDO and ISRO along with other Indian organizations are developing AVATAR (Aerobic Vehicle for hypersonic Aerospace TrAnspoRtation), a reusable launch vehicle (RLV) which is a hyperplane which can launch satellites into space and come back! It can also be used for space travel!

The only other reusable launch vehicles in the world today are American space shuttles. But don’t think AVATAR is just another space shuttle. There are better ways to do the same thing. Unlike a conventional space shuttle which takes off like a rocket and only while landing lands like an airplane on a runway, AVATAR will do both take offs and landing like an airplane on a runway! Since it is still in design phase there are also thoughts about having AVATAR launch using a transport airplane kind of launch vehicle in the initial phase and then use the indigenously built scramjet engines to achieve hypersonic speeds.

The design of AVATAR has already been patented by India, and a technology demonstration version of this will take off some time late next year i.e in 2008. A single AVATAR is expected to be reused at least a 100 times!

To summarize it all, the days ahead will be simply amazing, interesting and fascinating. I invite all Indian youth to come and be a part of this journey. Let us not forget the fact that today the youth in India below the age of 25 are much more than the entire population of USA and USSR put together. More brains = more gains :)

Decide and act on your contributions on your personal capacities for The Great Indian Dream . Jai Hind!

Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavantu - May all the people on this planet live happily!

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