ISRO: INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION

 Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO)

Indian Space Research Organisation

Introduction

It was the era of a Space war between the United States and the Soviet Union(Russia). But this article is not about a space war. This article is about an organization that will lead the space industry in the future. This is the story of an organization that doesn't have any resources and an experienced workforce in the initial year. The organization was not built to compete with Giant like the soviet union and America. This is the organization's story that transported parts of the rocket on a bullock cart and bicycle. This is the story of the only space organization which rich to mars in the first attempt. This is the story of the Indian space research organization(ISRO). 

The Humble origin of ISRO 

In the space race, there was a guy named Dr. Vikram Sarabhai somewhere in India dreaming about an Indian space program and taking a step toward a dream. In 1962, the Indian National Committee of space research (INCOSPAR) was founded by Vikram Sarabhai. It comes directly under the supervision of the Indian Defence minister. APJ Abdul Kalam(Pride and future President of India) was in the initial team of rocket engineers. The first launch site of the Indian space program was in Thumba, Trivandrum, Kerala. INCOSPAR later in 1969 dissolved and a new agency formed called as Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO). The first satellite which was successfully launched to space was Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. And ISRO comes into existence After 12 years of Sputnik 1. In the year 1969, 2 major space incidents happen. One was the foundation of ISRO, and the other was Neil Armstrong Became 1st human to step on the moon.

1st Satellites (Aryabhata and Rohini) 

ISRO's first satellite was Aryabhata. ISRO doesn't have the technology to launch a satellite, so India depended on the United States or the Soviet Union to help. But in 1971, India and Pakistan went to war, and the U.S.A was an ally of Pakistan, and the Soviet Union was an ally of India. Under UR Rao, ISRO and the Russian space agency sign an Agreement in 1972. In agreement, Russian provide launching of the various satellite, and in return Soviets, Union will use Indian ports for teaching ships and launching vessels. On 19 April 1975, Aryabhata was successfully launched from Kapustin Yar's lunching site in Russia by Kosmos-3M launch vehicle. It 26 side polyhedron in which 24 sides were covered by solar cells except for the top and bottom sides. But after 5 days of launch, power failure happened, and ISRO lost communication with the satellite. The mainframe of the satellite remains active till 1981. Because Orbital decay in 1992 satellite enters Earth's atmosphere. 

Rohini 1 is part of series of satellites launched by ISRO. In 1980, Rohini 1 was launched by ISRO from Satish Dhawan space center. What is special about Rohini 1? It was 1st home launched Satellite by ISRO. The launched vehicle utilized in the launching of the satellite was the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). It had 1.2 years of mission spam. After this, there was two more satellite in this series called Rohini D1 and D2.

Satellite launch vehicles

ISRO rocket varients

ISRO is an ambitious space agency just like many others, but one thing that separates ISRO from other national agencies is cost-effectiveness. ISRO has a mindset like a startup company, i.e., how to grow, remain on the budget, but it is financially backed up by the nation. As a result, ISRO has three major series of satellite launch vehicles. ISRO Scientist doesn't waste there time on naming vehicles, so there launch vehicles names are Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV), Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Vehicle (GSLV).

SLVs are made by ISRO in the early age of agency. This type of Launch vehicle has a small capacity to carry a payload of 40 kg and can reach only 400 km from the ground. SLV used to launch 4 Rohini satellites, in which the first two were Experiments, and the other two were for development. The first launch from SLV was a failure. After 317 seconds to launch, it crashes into the Bay of Bengal. After this, every mission was successful or partially successful. 

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is a medium-range vehicle. There 5 variants of PSLV  and can carry  38000 kg of payload. It depends on in which orbit satellite needs to establish. Variants are PSLV-G, PSLV-CA, PSLV-XL, PSLV-DL, and PSLV-QL. Most of the major achievements of the ISRO mission used PSLV for Launching, which includes India's first Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 and 1st interplanetary mission to Mars called Mars Orbitor Mission (MOM).

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch vehicle is an expendable type of launch vehicle. It has 2 variant GSLV Mk-I and GSLV Mk-2. GSLV is used to launch South Asia Satellite, aka SAARC satellite. It can carry up to 5000 kg of payload. It depends on the destined orbit. It cost around 47 million US dollars. 

ISRO also has one more type of launch Vehicle called  Geosynchronous Satellite Launch vehicle Mark-III (GSLV Mk III), also known as Launch vehicle Mark III. It cost 51 million US dollars for each launch. It can carry up to 10,000 kg mass of the payload. It depends on the orbit(For this case, the orbit is a low earth orbit). Chandrayaan-II was launched by this vehicle on 22 July 2019, which was partially successful. ISRO developed GSLV Mk-III for interplanetary exploration and human missions. The upcoming is Gaganyan.

Chandrayaan 1 & 2 

 

On 14 November 2008, ISRO shocked the whole world by successfully landing CHANDRAYAAN-I on the south pole of the moon and became the 4th agency in the world to do that. On 25th September 2009, the goal of Satellite was achieved. Satellite found water on the moon through M3(Moon Mineralogy Mapper). The vehicle used for launching Chandrayaan 1 was PSLV XL. The life of the mission was of 2 years. The estimated mission cost was 54 million US dollars. In 2016, Nasa Found Chandrayaan 1 orbiting moon after 7 years of completion of the mission.   

   

Chandrayaan II was the 2nd lunar mission by ISRO. GSLV Mk-III was used to launch the satellite from Satish Dhawan space center in Sriharikota. It consists lunar orbiter, a Vikram lander, and a Pragyan rover. The lunar orbiter was successfully established on lunar orbit, but the lander's landing was hard due to a software glitch. So the mission was partially successful. It was a difficult mission because India became 4th to do that if it had a soft landing. The cost of the mission was 141 million US dollars. The orbiter is still orbiting the moon.

Mangalyaan 

Mangalyaan
(Author:Nesnad)

Mangalyaan, aka Mars orbiter mission(MOM), is 1st interplanetary mission developed by ISRO. ISRO launches the obiter on 5 November 2013. After the successful launch of the orbiter, Isro became the 4th agency to reach mars obit after ROSCOSMOS, NASA, and ESA. It made India the only nation to reach the red planet's orbit in ASIA, and It was conquered in the first attempt, which made ISRO 1st one to do so. It was launched by PSLV-XL C25. The mission's planned time duration was 6 months, but it elapsed more than 6 years. Mangalyaan took 298 days to reach the red planet's orbit. PSLV doesn't have the capacity to directly reach the mars, but by doing series of apogee-raising orbiter maneuvering, this mission was accomplished. The mission's total cost was 73 million US dollars, and the satellite cost was 21 million USD. It was one of the biggest achievements under ISRO's belt. A more advanced nation like china couldn't do this in one attempt. The Total mass at the time of launch was 1337 kg, and payload mass was around 13 kg. Initially, GSLV was going to carry the satellite, but it failed twice in 2010 and had an issue with the cryogenic engine because of this PSLV was used.

PSLV-C37

On 15 February 2017, ISRO achieved another feat of launching 104 satellites in a single launch. The last record was of ROSCOSMOS 37 satellites. They all were successfully carried to sun-synchronous orbit. PSLV-XL was used to launch this satellite. Payload mass was 1,378 kg. In 104 satellites, 101 were from international companies, and only 3 were Indian satellites launched, including INS-1A, INS-2B, and Cartosat-2D. The record of ISRO standstill till 24 January 2021 when SpaceX launched 143 satellites in one go with the help of Falcon 9 rocket under the name of Transporter-1.

Upcoming Project

GAGANYAN

First Crewed Mission from ISRO named Gaganyan. It is planned in 3 series GaganyanI, II, and III. The re-entry test and Pad abort test are done on 18 December 2014 and 5 July 2018. The plan is to carry 2 to 3 passengers on the mission. It will carry Astrounots to low earth orbit. The planned design time span of the mission is 7 days. Mostly GSLV Mk-III will be used to launch. It was planned to launch in late 2021, but the covid-19 pandemic, like the whole world project, was also postponed.

Space Station 

ISRO rejected to join the International space station(ISS). India planned to build their own 20 tonne Space station. This project is the follow-up of the Gaganyan mission, and ISRO will be working on a Space Station after 5-7 years of completion of Gaganyan. It will be deployed in low earth orbit. And would be able to harbor 3 crew for 15-20 days. 

And ISRO is also planning to launch Mangalyaan-II, Chandrayaan-III, Venus Exploration Sukrayaan-I, and Solar Probe Aditya-I.

 

Conclusion

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is a very ambitious Agency, and as an Indian, We are proud of it. So share your thought on ISRO in the comment section below. You can also give emojis to the post if you want. It will help us in following our way.

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