ISRO is that rare government agency which is ambitious and continues to deliver
The Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) is a favourite subject of the media when it is looking at an example of government inefficiency. For decades, DRDO has had incomplete tanks, aircraft, guns, etcetera, in the works and that still does not stop it from making such announcements as plans to make robot soldiers. Whenever the failure of DRDO is mentioned, there is however an immediate antithesis cited—the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
To get an idea of the beginnings of ISRO, remember that iconic photo by Henri Cartier Bresson in which the cone of a rocket is being taken on the back of a bicycle in Kerala’s Thumba village in 1966, three years before it had launched its first rocket from there, and that was brought in a bullock cart. Since then, ISRO has launched over 70 satellites, is responsible for India’s ballistic missiles and had a lunar mission that placed an Indian flag on the moon. On Wednesday morning, when the Mars Orbiter Mission or Mangalyaan entered the orbit of Mars, no one was surprised that it succeeded.
Going to Mars is not easy. Mangalyaan was launched on 5 November 2013. On 1 December, it said goodbye to the earth’s influence and then, circling the sun, took a parabolic path to Mars. The vessel travelled through space for over ten months, and the distance it has covered is 666 million km. All of it has been done on a shoestring budget. On Sunday, three days before Mangalyaan entered the Mars orbit, the US agency NASA’s space vessel Maven reached there. It spent just over Rs 4,000 crore on the project. How much did it cost ISRO? About Rs 450 crore. And it is not as if India reached there after all the developed countries had paid a visit. India is only the fourth to achieve this feat. And the only one to get it right the first time it tried.
Mangalyaan will now do studies using its payload. This includes a colour camera that will look at Phobos and Deimos, the two satellites of Mars, measuring the presence of chemical elements in Martian atmosphere and using advanced spectrometers to study minerals on the planet’s surface.
One of the reasons that ISRO became such a success was that the agency has had some extraordinary people helming it right from the beginning with Dr Vikram Sarabhai. Then there was APJ Abdul Kalam, who went on to become the President of India. They were not just committed scientists but knew how to negotiate the corridors of power. But ISRO has also had its share of controversies. There was the Nambi Narayanan espionage case, in which the scientist was framed and later acquitted. Narayanan was responsible for some of ISRO’s technological achievements like the introduction of liquid fuelled rockets.
On the website of ISRO, a quote by Dr Vikram Sarabhai says, ‘We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally and in the comity of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.’ He was wrong about the exploration bit (only manned space flight remains now), but he wouldn’t have had a problem with that.
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