India sets its sights on
Mars By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India's space scientists are
reaching out further into the universe. Even as an
unmanned mission to the moon is readying for
launch, and a manned mission to space awaits final
approval from the government, they are already
eyeing the next destination - Mars.
The
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is
willing to launch a mission to Mars if it gets a
green light from the government, its chairman
Madhavan Nair, told reporters in
Bangalore last week. "Our
scientific community has come out with an outline
of a mission to Mars. If the proposal is
interesting, we will pursue it," Nair said.
"We can undertake a mission to Mars within
five years of the government's approval. If the
project is given the go-ahead now, we will be in a
position to launch the mission to the red planet
by 2012," Nair, who is also chairman of the Space
Commission, an apex policymaking body on space
matters, said.
Nair's statement came in
response to questions from the media on India's
Mars strategy in the context of China recently
announcing a joint mission with Russia to Mars in
2009. Under an agreement signed by Russia and
China a little more than a fortnight ago, the
Russian spacecraft Phobos Explorer will carry a
Chinese satellite to Mars, where the latter will
probe the Martian space environment.
But
the ISRO denies that the interest in a Mars
mission has been prompted by the Chinese-Russian
move to this planet. "India's space program has
always been determined by its own development
goals, interests and priorities," S Krishnamurthy,
ISRO's spokesman, told Asia Times Online, ruling
out that India is in a space race with other
countries or that its space program is influenced
by what other countries do.
India's space
program is on a roll. Preparations for an unmanned
moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, are on in full swing.
The ISRO has begun assembling the moon craft that
will lift off in March 2008. And it is pushing
forward with regard to sending a human into space
as well. After getting a nod from the Indian
scientific community for a manned space mission,
the ISRO is working on the project proposal which
it will submit for government approval later this
year.
In January, the ISRO demonstrated
expertise in re-entry technology that is central
to sending a manned mission when it brought back
safely to earth an orbiting capsule. This is
complex technology that only a few countries, the
United States, Russia, France, Japan, China and
now India, have. And if India succeeds with its
manned space mission it will join an exclusive
club including Russia, the US and China that have
sent humans into space.
India has
impressive capabilities in launch vehicles and
satellites. Until a recent failed launch of the
geo-synchronous launch vehicle, the ISRO had a
string of successful launches to its credit. It
has put some 45 satellites in orbit to date. In
the area of Earth Observation, the Indian Remote
Sensing (IRS) satellite system is the world's
largest constellation of satellites in operation.
ISRO scientists are confident that they
have the technological expertise to fulfill
India's space dreams, whether with regard to the
unmanned space mission, the manned mission to
space or the Mars mission.
"A mission to
Mars might seem a distant dream at this juncture
but it is not impossible given our considerable
expertise and experience," a retired ISRO
scientist told Asia Times Online. "An India-made
rocket like the GSLV [geo-synchronous launch
vehicle] can carry over 500-kg payload and reach
Mars without a hitch," Nair had pointed out last
week.
Like its mission to the moon, the
mission to Mars will come in for sharp criticism
from sections within the country on the grounds
that this is a hugely costly indulgence as India
confronts serious problems of poverty, illiteracy
and malnutrition. But India's robust economic
growth in recent years means it can afford its
space and defense programs, counter others.
Besides, the ISRO's projects are
implemented with small budgets. Its total budget
is said to be one-twentieth of that of America's
National Aeronautical and Space Administration.
Years of technology sanctions imposed on India
following its explosion of a nuclear device in
1974, prompted its scientific community to look
for economical and indigenously developed
technology.
Krishnamurthy points out that
missions to the moon or Mars are not at the cost
of the ISRO's other programs that have
developmental applications. "The moon mission, for
instance, involves an investment of only Rs600
million [US$14 million] per year over five years,
just 2% of ISRO's total budget," he said,
stressing that the priority of other programs will
not fall as a result of the headline-grabbing moon
or Mars missions.
Besides, the ISRO isn't
a research organization that simply consumes
funds. It has yielded concrete results,
contributed to development priorities such as
education and healthcare, generated profits and is
a commercial success. The financing of its dreams
isn't fully dependent on government largesse.
The ISRO's growing commercial success -
India builds and launches satellites that are 40%
cheaper than its European and US competitors - is
meeting a large part of its rising expenditures.
They might be increasing dramatically - its
projected spending for fiscal 2008 is the highest
in recent years and 29% more than budgeted for in
the previous financial year - but so is its
revenue. Antrix, the ISRO's commercial arm,
expects a 30% growth in revenue for the year
ending March 2008.
Unlike the space
programs of other countries that had their roots
in their defense programs, that of India was
rooted in developmental objectives. According to
the ISRO chairman, "NASA is interested in
interplanetary exploration, looking at galaxies,
asteroids and other planets. ISRO is first and
foremost interested in looking at planet Earth and
conceiving of applications for space to improve
the quality of life down here."
Indeed,
India's space program has been an agent of change
with achievements in the fields of education,
distance learning, television broadcasting, water
management, weather forecast, agriculture,
telemedicine and so on.
Does India's
mission to the moon or a possible one to Mars
indicate a change in the ISRO's priorities? Will
its mission to explore the moon and Mars distract
it from pursuing the development agenda? Will
India's space program lose direction if it decides
to go in for mission to Mars?
Krishnamurthy stoutly refutes such
allegations. "Missions to the moon or Mars will
give us technology that will upgrade our
communication and remote-sensing systems, which
are used for developmental applications," he
argues. These missions he says will in fact
further fuel the development agenda of India's
space program. Besides, the development
applications of the space program are expanding
alongside.
It does seem that India's space
program hasn't lost direction yet.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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