Dreams have come crashing down -- Kumar Chellappan

The Indian Space Research Organisation disappointed the country by scoring a ‘hat-trick’ of failures last week when it had to call off the much-awaited launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle powered by an indigenously-developed cryogenic engine, and that too just an hour before its scheduled lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. Though the launch vehicle and the 1,982 kg communication satellite it was carrying onboard remains safe, it will take months for rescheduling the launch. ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said the mission was called off due to a leak in the second stage of the three-stage heavy launch vehicle capable of launching communication and earth observation satellites weighing 2,000kg into the predetermined orbits.

India's GSLV programme, more precisely, the cryogenic engine programme, is yet to fructify, though three decades of research and development works have gone into the project, in addition to thousands of crores of rupees of public money pumped into it. One can understand  the difficulties involved in perfecting the highly complex cryogenic technology, a passport for entering the big league of commercial space launch business, a monopoly of countries like the US, Russia, France, Japan and China.

Though India launched two GSLV missions in 2010, both of them failed due to different reasons. While one of the flights was powered with indigenously-developed cryogenic engine, the other one was launched with a Russian-built engine. In the run up to last Monday’s launch, ISRO had claimed that the cryogenic engine had been subjected to a series of strenuous tests under different conditions taking into account the past failures. But it turned out to be another disappointing and disheartening day for the country.

It is time ISRO does an introspection and find out the reasons for the inordinate delay in perfecting the technology. There have been remarks from inside the space agency itself that there are no right persons for the right job. The ISRO Chairman himself is neither a launch vehicle specialist nor a satellite expert. His predecessor, Mr G Madhavan Nair, was an internationally-reputed launch vehicle specialist. Mr UR Rao and Mr K Kasturirangan, the predecessors of Mr Nair, were satellite specialists. Mr Radhakrishnan is a budgeting specialist with no experience in managing big-time research, according to some of his own colleagues.

Mr Radhakrishnan, who was to superannuate on August 31, has been given an extension of two years by the Union Government. His tenure is marked with delayed projects and postponed missions. The fact that Monday's cancellation of the mission was necessitated by a factor which has no link with the cryogenic engine, itself speaks volumes about the callousness and indifference of people in high places. Two days before the scheduled launch of the GSLV, the ISRO Chairman had told a news agency that the manned mission to space was not in India's agenda. It came as a shock. ISRO had made announcements many times that India's manned mission to space would happen by 2015. Of late, the ISRO Chairman is obsessed with ‘Mission to Mars’, scheduled for November. What India is going to gain by this project, is not known to anybody.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has succeeded in sending a spacecraft to Mars. It has landed in the red planet and sending a lot of data which the NASA has put on the public domain. The Indian mission will go only up to an orbit 350 km away from Mars. The pictures given by the country's Resourcesat and Remote sensing satellites themselves are of poor quality.

The quality of pictures which ISRO is going to get from its Mars mission is anybody's guess. Instead of diverting the energy of the organisation in multiple directions which do not have any bearing on the immediate future, isn't it advisable for ISRO to focus on the cryogenic engine development, a critical technology needed for making India a force to reckon with in the international space business?