Since humanity came into existence, we all have been looking up at the sky.
Searching for what is above & beyond, searching for the truth.
A long time ago in India, a small group of scientist humbly began their search beyond the sky, carrying parts of rockets in bi-cycles and also using bullock carts for space experiments.
Who would have thought in just a few decades, this small start-up will make history.
The journey of ISRO ARYABHAT to GAGANUAAN. #ISRO
"24 September 2014"India shocked the world as India's satellite Mangalyaan, after travelling for 10 months in space, entered Mars orbit. Thus becoming, the first country to reach Mars on its maiden attempt, while Russia had to face 9 failed missions before reaching Mars.
Now the world knows this Indian space agency as, Indian Space Research organisation or ISRO.
To understand the journey of ISRO
let's turn back time.1957, the launch of the first satellite Sputnik 1 by the USSR, inspired the world towards space. The next year, America launched Explorer 1 and in 1962 the first British & Canadian Satellites were also launched.
The same year, in between this nascent satellite race & the ongoing India-China conflict, the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was set up, which later became ISRO, with a motive to Harness space technology for national development.
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| church of Mary Magdalene (ISRO) |
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| Vikram Sarabhai and APJ Abdul Kalam |
Vikram Sarabhai the chairman of INCOSPAR, along with a young scientist APJ Abdul Kalam, attended the Sunday mass in that church.
At that time the bishop told everyone that scientist also does the work of God for human prosperity and he went on to ask the followers, do they want to give up their church for science?
There was silence and then everyone replied 'Amen'.
This is how a church became ISRO's first workplace, and because of this gesture by the villagers, two new churches & a school were built for them, in less than 100 days.
Later in 1963, the launch of the first sounding rocket marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme.
The next year in 1964, the US demonstrated the power of satellites by the live transmission of the Tokyo Olympic Games across the pacific. But at that time India's satellite program was almost non-existent.
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| Aryabhata |
It took 11 years, when ISRO's first Indian satellite, Aryabhata was launched by the Soviet Union.
Four years later in 1979, India's first experimental Satellite Launch Vehicle, SLV-3, took off but only 317 seconds later the vehicle crashed into the Bay of Bengal.
All scientist were shattered.
But the next year, the SLV-3 launch was successful and the Rohini satellite became the first satellite successfully launched by India.
Both these launches were headed by India's former president APJ Abdul Kalam.
Now, India has come a long way and has one of the largest operational remote sensing satellites in the world.
Not only that, but India also holds the record of launching 104 satellite in a single rocket, massively beating the previous record of 37 satellites held by Russia.
Now, ISRO through its commercial entity, Antrix Corporation, has launched over 300 satellites for 33 countries.
So without further delay, let's start our never before seen journey to witness ISRO's Business & Space Empire.
Our first stop is North America and we will reach picturesque Canada.
ISRO has to date launched 13 satellites of Canada, which includes satellites for communications, managing marine transportation and the world's first space telescope for asteroids, NEOSSat.
Moving to USA, we will reach Washington DC, headquarters of NASA.
Which is the world's richest space agency having over 12 times more annual budget than ISRO.
NASA & ISRO have a history of space cooperation.
The first Nike-Apache rocket launched in India was supplied by NASA.
Moreover, in the 1970s ISRO and NASA conducted a joint Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), that beamed informational television programs to more than 2400 villages across India through NASA's satellite.
Arthur Clarke, the writer of the iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey, called SITE “The greatest communication experiment in history”.
SITE programmes included shows like Krishi Darshan, which was also initiated by Vikram Sarabhai and is now the longest-running television show in the world.
Moreover, NASA & ISRO have also been jointly involved in the discovery of water molecules on the moon surface and are now jointly building the world's most expensive Earth-imaging satellite, NISAR, to understand the occurrence of earthquakes & other natural disasters.
Not only that, but ISRO has also launched over 230 American satellite into orbit.
From US let's travel to South America and reach Guiana Space Centre.
This is a special place for ISRO.
From here, around 20 ISRO satellites have been launched, including India's first indigenous communication satellite, APPLE.
Moving to the rest of South America, ISRO has launched the first satellite built in Chile, the second Colombian satellite and also a nanosatellite built by the university in Argentina.
From here let's travel to Africa and reach Algeria.
ISRO has launched multiple agricultural and disaster monitoring satellites for Algeria.
Moreover, ISRO also holds a mission tracking ground station in Mauritius and is also planning another tracking station in the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe.
Now let's travel to Europe and reach France.
The study of the tropical atmosphere in 2011 and studying of the ocean in 2013 were some of the mission ISRO and CNES of France had jointly undertaken.
Moreover, there are also plans for another joint earth observation mission called TRISHNA.
ISRO has to date launched 3 French Satellites, including a nano-satellite for researching the planet Beta Pictoris b.
Furthermore, Russia & ISRO have had a long association including, India's first Satellite launch, Aryabhata launched by Russia for Free, a joint students satellite YOUTHSAT and also the iconic Indo-Soviet manned space mission, when Rakesh Sharma, became the first Indian to travel to space.
Moreover, the astronauts for India’s first manned space mission will also be trained in Russia.
In all ISRO has launched satellites for over 15 European countries, including over 10 satellites for UK & Germany, 5 satellites for Italy and has also launched the first Austrian satellite, Finland's first educational satellite, and also a Belgian satellite, PROBA, which has become ESA's longest operated Earth observation mission.
Now it's time to travel to Asia.
ISRO has launched multiple satellites for Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Japan and Indonesia.
Moreover, ISRO also holds a joint mission tracking station in Indonesia and Brunei.
Moreover for South Asia, ISRO has launched a SAARC Satellite, a gift from India to all its neighbouring SAARC countries.
Now after our world tour finally, it's time to reach India.
Here, ISRO centres are located in over 15 locations, which include Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thumba and Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
Over the year, ISRO has been a major catalyst for the expansion of television in India.
ISRO operates one of the largest domestic communication satellite systems in the Asia-Pacific region, which relay 33 Doordarshan TV channels and also DTH like TATA sky.
Moreover, ISRO satellites are also used in multiple fields including agriculture, water management, land planning and also disaster management.
Furthermore, ISRO satellites also provide navigation assistance to aircraft and ISRO has also developed a Regional Navigation system, NavIC.
In 1999, during the Kargil war, India had approached US to get GPS data of the Kargil region, but that request was denied.
This made India realize the importance of the Navigation system, and thus after 2 decades of hard work by ISRO, NavIc came into existence.
Now NavIC at the India level is estimated to be more accurate than GPS, and therefore multiple phones are being launched in India, that will be using NavIC.
Moreover, ISRO was also involved in Mission Shakti, a joint mission to successfully test anti-satellite weapon and has also successfully tested the game-changer rocket, the Reusable Launch Vehicle.
We have discussed a lot about space, now let's travel to space.
For our space mission, we will use ISRO's biggest rocket, GSLV Mk III.
As we reach the equatorial orbit, we will be greeted by Astrosat.
India’s first multi-wavelength space observatory, dedicated to research on neutron stars and black holes.
Going ahead, we will find the clusters of ISAT & GSAT satellites, transmitting television channels, telecom and VSAT ATM connectivity across India.
ISRO future MISSION
From here let's travel towards the moon.
In 2009 just 100 km from Moon's surface Chandrayaan-1 was orbiting, now we will also find Chandrayaan-2 orbiter circling and the remains of the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander, which travelled for over 383,000 km, but only lost control just 2.1 Km away from the Lunar surface.
As even after failures one should never give up, ISRO will again be back on Moon with Chandrayaan-3 mission, expected to launch in 2022.
From the moon, let's travel towards the largest object in our solar system, Sun.
We will travel 1.5 million km from Earth and reach L1, where ISRO has planned ADITYA, India's first solar mission.
From here let's travel to Venus.
ISRO's Venus orbiter mission, Shukrayaan-1, is planned to be launched after 2023.
Coming back closer to earth
ISRO has planned India's first Human Spaceflight Programme, Gaganyaan, which will use a half humanoid called Vyommitra, which means a Space Friend, instead of using animals like Laika dog, the first mammal in space, which was used in Sputnik 2.
Now let's move towards the red planet, Mars.
Here we will find ISRO's Mangalyaan, orbiting Mars and taking images of a very large shield volcano, Olympus mons, which is about two and a half times bigger than Mount Everest.
Moreover in the future, ISRO has also planned another mission to Mars called Mangalyaan 2.
As we are now far away from earth, watching the beauty and wonder of Mars, my mind goes back to the start of this journey.
How it all started about fifty-seven years ago, by carrying rocket parts on a bicycle to ISRO now reaching Mars.
Who knows what marvellous achievements the next fifty-seven years might bring.
All I can this is, ISRO's Business and Space empire.
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