US joins India's space
odyssey By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - India's capabilities in space
sciences have received a fresh fillip. The United
States has shown keen interest in placing a
payload aboard India's first spacecraft to the
moon, Chandrayan-I.
Many believe that the
US intention to place a payload on Chandrayan-I is
a major area of engagement between the two
countries. It is a reflection of the changed
perceptions in Washington after years of suspicion
about the Indian space
entity's alleged involvement
in transgressing stringent US laws to obtain
dual-use high-technology items.
This had
impeded cooperation during a time when India and
the US were in opposite Cold War alignments. India
considers its missile, space and nuclear programs
to be closely interlinked, with nuclear deterrence
against Pakistan and China and benefits to the
people through satellite technology and nuclear
energy being critical factors.
The
government-controlled Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO) is leading the country's
attempt to join the elite lunar club. ISRO has
said the Indian lunar mission will not be an
exercise in reinventing the wheel but will be a
quantum jump. The mission is being viewed by ISRO
as a stepping-stone to far more ambitious projects
that will include landing a robot on the lunar
surface and visits by Indian spacecraft to other
planets of the solar system.
In an
additional boost, ISRO has also announced that the
country's first fully commercial satellite launch
will take place around April or May when the
Italian satellite Agile will be carried to outer
space aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
(PSLV) C-8.
ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair
made the announcement. Nair said India's launch
vehicles are cost-effective. "It will be a great
opportunity for us if we can capture at least 10%
in the launch business, which is worth [US]$2
billion in the international market," he said.
For India, which began its space journey
in a modest way in 1963 with a launch of a
nine-kilogram rocket from a research facility at
the fishing hamlet of Thumba in southern state of
Kerala, the Chandrayan-I marks a major leap.
India's unmanned scientific mission to the moon
that was approved in 2004 moved high on New
Delhi's priority list in the wake of China's
successful manned space mission of October 2003.
The scientific objectives of Chandrayan-I,
which should zoom into space in 2007-08 at the
head of the four-stage Indian-built PSLV, include
preparation of a three-dimensional atlas of the
regions on the moon and the chemical mapping of
the entire lunar surface. India will then join the
elite club of space-faring nations that have the
wherewithal to undertake such complex and
challenging space missions.
The $80
million Chandrayan-I project has elicited a
positive response from Johns Hopkins University,
and a miniature synthetic aperture radar
instrument from the varsity's applied-physics lab
is being set up in collaboration with the US
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). The mission will open a new chapter in
Indo-US space ties, which started on a positive
note back in the early 1960s when the US set up
the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station but
subsequently fizzled out because of sanctions.
In the changed scenario of increased
Indo-US cooperation that has extended to nuclear
energy and defense, space has been identified as
one key area of engagement in the joint statement
between India and US in January 2004 that outlined
the next steps in the strategic partnership.
Seven months later, at a high-profile
conference of experts, diplomats and business
representatives from both countries, a vision
document was prepared that outlined the broad
areas of collaboration, which included:
Earth-observation science, technology and related
applications; satellite communications technology
and applications; satellite navigation and
applications; Earth and space science;
natural-hazards and disaster-management support;
and education and training in space. A joint
working group on space cooperation has been
discussing the issue since.
ISRO is
developing two categories of rocket. The PSLVs are
designed for Earth observation and scientific
missions, including remote-sensing satellites
(such Cartosat-1 launched last year) and
Chandrayan. The larger Geosynchronous Satellite
Launch Vehicles (GSLVs) deliver communications
satellites into geostationary orbits 36,000
kilometers above the Earth where they can "hover''
over the same place. The GSLV motors form the
critical stages of operations of the long-range
Agni missiles that are capable of delivering
nuclear payloads.
India's Agni project,
launched in the late 1980s, has been under the US
microscope, with that country using every
persuasive power, including sanctions, to delay
it. The progress in missile technology has
happened concomitantly with the strides in space
research as the motors used in the launch vehicles
of satellites have been incorporated into
missiles.
Keeping India's interest in
overcoming hurdles in procuring dual-use
technologies by getting US export-control
procedures simplified, the Indian parliament last
year passed the Weapons of Mass Destruction and
Their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful
Activities) Bill, which the government has
emphasized does not "in any manner constrict"
India's nuclear program, either strategic or
civilian. The nuclear bill is important in light
of India's emergence as a nuclear state, and meets
the country's commitments under United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1540 passed in April
2004.
Commercial launch In the
past decade, ISRO has launched eight PSLVs and
three GSLVs without encountering any failure. Last
May, Cartosat-1 became the 12th successful
consecutive launch in 12 successive years.
Cartosat-1 joined what is already the world's
largest cluster of non-military remote-sensing
satellites.
Six Indian spacecraft are
already observing the Earth with a wide range of
instruments. The INSAT series of satellites have
given 90% of the population access to satellite
television, with the most recent launch, Edusat,
building a distant-learning network. The Indian
launch vehicles are not yet powerful enough for
the country's heaviest satellites, which have been
launched on Europe's Ariane. But ISRO plans to
become self-sufficient in this sector from 2008,
when its GSLV-3 launcher is due to be ready for
heavier satellites.
Many feel that the
time is ripe for India to embark on a
government-led campaign to win launch orders from
other countries by putting competitive bids,
especially to developing nations. As in several
other fields, India can follow the lead taken by
China, which has joined hands with Brazil and won
an order in 2004 to build and launch a
communications satellite for Nigeria. Russia, the
US and Europe continue to lead the world in space
launches, followed by China.
The launch of
Agile will be a watershed. India may also launch
Russian satellites for a global navigational
system this year. As well, ISRO is slated to send
an Indonesian micro-satellite into space this
year. The target, as expounded by Nair, is to
garner a 10% share of all commercial space
launches in the world in the next five years.
More than three decades ago, Vikram
Sarabhai, the architect of the Indian space
program, outlined what he considered should be
India's objectives in space. "We don't have the
fantasy of competing with the economically
advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or
manned flights. But we are convinced that to play
a meaningful role nationally and in the community
of the nations, we must be second to none in the
application of advanced technologies to the real
problem of man and society which we find in our
country."
India is on its way.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
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2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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