India launched its first rocket in 1963, under the visionary eye of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. Over the past four decades, under the successive leadership of Professor Satish Dhawan, Professor U.R. Rao and now Dr. Kasturirangan, Sarabhai’s original vision has crystallized into a series of missions, with varying success. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has built communication satellites, remote sensing satellites and launch vehicles. India is now one of the seven nations in the world to have satellite-launching capability.
ISRO was set up with Rs. 100 million in 1969, the year Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. The scientists had to do all the design work from scratch with whatever materials, skills and instruments were available. The funding has increased steadily over the years, and today ISRO gets an annual budget of $184 million — still frugal by international standards.
And yet with increasing global competition in the space domain, ISRO now wants to talk the language of business. It has been trying hard to get its teeth into the commercialization of space services. In 1999 it launched PSLV C2 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), which carried an Indian oceanographic satellite but also put South Korean and German satellites into polar orbit. Last year, PSLV C3 placed two foreign satellites (German and Belgian) into orbit.
But India’s commercial launch program, in development since 1982, still has much to prove. India is yet to handle a major commercial payload. The foreign satellites carried on both flights weighed less than one-tenth of the Indian satellite on board. Real commercial success will come when the primary payload is a non-Indian entity, and to this end, ISRO has set up the Antrix Corporation.
Mission Moon?
Today, ISRO’s chairman, Dr. K Kasturirangan, is ready to explore space — and has plans to launch an un-piloted spacecraft to the moon in 2005. He believes that providing greater scientific challenges to his engineers will stimulate innovation, which will then ripple into related industries. “The spin-off technology will be extremely useful for India,” he says, “We must look at science as an investment for one to explore and look at newer areas.”
Some see this as a prestige issue for India. It is a complex mission. The moon is 10 times as far as any distance ISRO has ever attempted. There are many hurdles, including practical problems, government approval and critics. A lunar mission would clearly heighten India’s profile as a global space power.
The Satellite Designers
The heart of India’s satellite program is an army of engineers and scientists at the ISRO Satellite Center (ISAC) in Bangalore.
In 1975, ISRO carried out the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) using an American satellite. SITE was a unique sociological experiment, involving telecast programs to 2,400 villages all over the country, carrying information on family planning, crop production and healthy living. It was a start.
INSAT
The Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) was established in 1983. The INSATs, would be multipurpose satellites used for telecommunications, television broadcasting and meteorology. Though ISRO engineers designed the first four INSATs, they were built in the U.S. Today, INSATs are built by ISRO and 11 have been lifted to the orbit so far — all by foreign launchers.
ISRO’s commercial ambitions suffered a serious setback following the loss of indigenously built INSAT-2D. “I still remember that evening when INSAT-2D’s power-system failed and gradually started deteriorating,” says Rangan “Finally it had to be decommissioned. It was one of the key satellites for further enhancing the communication capability of the country. It was working well for four months. It was a terrible day for me,” he says.
INSAT-2E was launched in 1999. Of the 17 transponders on INSAT-2E, 11 have been leased to Intelsat, a private user. Over the next 10 years, Intelsat is expected to bring ISRO $100 million in revenues. At present, 50 percent of the satellite transponders that service India are on foreign satellites.
INSAT-2E allowed over 40 companies to set up their own private networks using VSAT technology. With the launch of INSAT-3B in 2000, nearly 600 companies set up private networks. This satellite also came as a boon to wireless communication service providers. INSAT-3C, carrying 32 transponders, was launched in January 2002, and ISRO plans to develop a fourth generation of INSAT satellites to meet the increasing demand for transponders.
GSAT
ISRO unveiled a special experimental spacecraft — Geo-Synchronous Satellite (GSAT), in 2001, which incorporated many new technology experiments. A problem emerged when Indian rocket GSLV failed to put GSAT into the right orbit due to a tiny error in velocity. Instead of the target orbit of 36,000 km, the satellite was placed at about 32,000 km.
Fortunately, an additional 10-kg of fuel loaded on board the GSAT fired the propulsion motors on the satellite, and eventually raised it to 36,000 km. “The shortage of propellant on board the GSAT has given us an opportunity to characterize the propulsion system extremely well. It has also given us better insights for estimating the propellant for future satellites,” says Dr. P.S. Nair, project director for GSAT-1.
New technologies, such as shaped beam reflectors, steerable antenna, heat pipe radiator panels and fast recovery star sensors, have been established with the launch of GSAT. “By designing GSAT, we have got a hold on high power communication design,” says Nair.
An Eye in the Sky
ISRO has also launched eight remote sensing satellites to date, with the first model launched in 1988.
The multi-spectral camera loaded on recent models IRS-1C and 1D has a resolution of 5.6 meters with a revisit of 22 days. As the satellite orbits the earth it selectively snaps pictures with its digital camera. Captured images are transmitted to earth via a network of ground stations, and then sent to a data acquisition center in Hyderabad. These images provide information on agricultural lands, water bodies and forestlands. ISRO has a separate satellite for ocean studies.
“No, the resolution of IRS is not the best in the world,” admits Rangan. The resolution achieved by IRS-1D was the best in the world until Space Imaging, an American firm, launched IKONOS in April 2000. IKONOS is designed to capture images of one-meter resolution. IRS-P5 will be launched by the end of 2002, and will have a resolution of 2.5 meters.
After the Kargil intrusions, ISRO moved more quickly on the Technology Experiments Satellite (TES), and launched it last year. No other Indian satellite has been the target of as much media speculation as TES. Some conclude that it is meant for military applications, but ISRO officials refuse to comment on this issue.
The Launchers
While the first remote sensing satellites were being readied at ISAC, work on building a launch vehicle had begun at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram. Starting with the early days of ‘sounding rockets’ to the most recent GSLV, there have been successes and notable failures.
Indian scientists learned the basics of their satellite launch vehicle (SLV) design by closely imitating the U.S. “Scout” rocket. SLV had its first experimental flight in 1979, but failed. The second attempt was successful.
After two more successful SLV launches, work began on another, larger vehicle capable of putting a 150-kg satellite into orbit. This was the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), and the first two flights failed. Serious doubts arose about the viability of the launch vehicle program.
“With the ASLV failure, we understood the entire ballistics of the rocket, which then was translated into designing the PSLV,” says Rao.
But the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) was a quantum jump in size and complexity from SLV-3 — the last successful model to come out of VSSC. While the SLV-3 first stage was one meter in diameter and weighted about 10 tons, the PSLV booster stage was three meters in diameter and weighed about 140 tons. Indeed, while SLV and ASLV were solid engine vehicles, PSLV had second and fourth stages powered by liquid propellant engines.
Yet despite the challenges, PSLV, which was first launched in 1993, has been a success, and was the launch vehicle that put small Korean, Belgian and German satellites into orbit in 1999 and 2001.
GSLV
But India had to increase the payload of its rockets beyond 1.2 tons to become a serious competitor in the business of launching large satellites. The next generation GSLV (Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) would be the answer, and development began in the mid 1980s, but technological barriers remained — namely more powerful “cryogenic” engines.
ISRO worked out a contract with Russia for the delivery of cryogenic engines as well as cryogenic engine technology. But on the grounds that India might use the engines to build intercontinental ballistic missiles, the U.S. pressed Russia to block the technology transfer in 1992. The revised contract provided India with the engines themselves, but not with the know-how to build them. As of today, few countries in the world — the United States, Russia, France, Japan and China — can build cryogenic engines.
Since then ISRO has been using the Russian-made cryogenic engine stages on the GSLV, while developing a cryogenic engine on its own. “ISRO was able to produce and test a cryogenic engine in just seven years, which is considered remarkable given the constraints of embargoes and technology denials,” says Rangan.
The cryogenic engine, which uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, enables the launch of high-altitude satellites into a geo-synchronous orbit that keeps them stationary relative to a fixed point on Earth. Such satellites are used mainly for broadcasting and communications.
On April 18, 2001 the much-awaited GSLV took off from Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh), using a Russian cryogenic stage. GSLV marks the end of India’s dependence on others for launching its communication satellites. The first launch was an overall success despite the velocity problems that put its cargo GSAT satellite into a slightly incorrect orbit.
Test flights are certainly required before India can offer geo-synchronous satellite launch services to other countries on a commercial basis — particularly if indigenous cryogenic engines are to be used. But with India a few steps away from becoming a serious commercial satellite launcher. Business issues are already at the forefront.
Satellite Outsourcing
VSSC director G. Madhavan Nair says, “We have developed cost-effective launch vehicles such as PSLV and GSLV. The launch cost of these vehicles will be 70 to 80 percent of comparable vehicles from other countries.”
Getting market share in the select global satellite launching industry is not easy. Many space agencies place constraints on shipment of their payloads to other countries, and this has hindered the growth of commercial launches by countries providing low-cost launch vehicles.
Newly established Antrix Corporation will have to work hard if foreign spacecraft are to be carried by Indian launchers. But as space technology around the world becomes increasingly commercialized, years of hard work could really begin to pay off.
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