Moon and beyond - India's space programme in take-off mode

"New Delhi - As the United States winds down its space shuttle programme, emerging economy India is developing its own reusable launch vehicle that it hopes will make it a space power.

The Avatar, a reusable launch vehicle (RLV), would be capable of delivering a 500 to 1000-kilogramme payload into orbit at a fairly low cost.

The Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (Avatar) is just one example of how far India's space programme has travelled since it first launched a sounding rocket in 1963 from a fishing village Thumba in southern Kerala.

India's space scientists have, over four decades, slowly but steadily developed a mature capability despite small budgets and an embargo on high technology transfers because of its nuclear tests.

'With a miniscule budget, we have developed cutting edge technology,' said Madhavan Nair, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Today, India's Department of Space encompasses the ISRO, more than a dozen research and development units, and the Antrix Corporation, a state-owned company that markets space products and services. More than 500 small and medium industries contribute to the programmes.

And after years of focusing on applications like telecommunications and remote sensing aimed at economic and social development, India, is now looking at space exploration.

In 2008, India heralded a new operational phase of its space programme with the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission. The mission cost an estimated 83 million dollars, about a third of China's Chang'e-1 and a sixth of Japan's Kaguya moon missions.

Chandrayaan-1 had to be aborted in August 2009, several months before schedule due to communication failure, but ISRO claimed it had achieved 95 per cent of its objectives.

Discovery of water and ice on the moon by NASA instruments on board the Chandrayaan have added to the sense of success of the mission.

But Chandrayaan looks to be just the beginning as India has an impressive string of missions in the pipeline. These include:

- A second moon mission Chandrayaan-II in the first quarter of 2013.

- A manned spaceflight in 2016 in which two astronauts will go on a week-long journey in low-Earth orbit. ISRO estimates the project would cost about 124 billion rupees (2.7 billion dollars). The funding has been approved on principle by the government, but only a small part of it released so far.

- Aditya-1, a satellite to skirt the outer solar atmosphere to gather data on the sun in about 2016-17.

- A planned Mars mission in 2030.

One of the main factors holding back India's space programme has been the paucity of funds. A 50-billion-rupee (a little over 1- billion-dollar) allocation in the budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year was the highest ever, according to current ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan. The amount was a 58 per cent hike from the previous budget, but amounted to just 3 per cent of funding earmarked by the US for its space programme in 2010.

Critics also continue to ask, can a developing country like India, where millions are mired in poverty and disease, afford to spend even this on futuristic space missions?

India's space policy-makers maintain its programmes are not part of a space race with countries like China or Japan, but an extension of its core aim of aiding development.

Currently, India has one of the world's largest constellations of remote sensing and communication satellites. These are used for broadcasting, weather forecasting and geo-mapping applications for mineral prospecting, managing water, ocean and forest resources and disaster management.

India's satellite launch vehicles - the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - have good records and earned 1 billion rupees (about 22 million dollars) from launching satellites for other countries over the past three years.

Successful development of the Avatar, a scramjet-powered hyperplane that would take off like a commercial jet, would give India an edge in a competitive market where no country barring the US has yet launched a reusable satellite launch vehicle.

ISRO scientists are cagey about giving details, but from the organization's website and presentations at science fora, it appears the Avatar RLV would be a two-stage-to-orbit vehicle with wings and a tail fin.

Unlike NASA's space shuttle, it would not enter orbit, but launch a satellite into orbit and immediately re-enter the earth's atmosphere to glide back for a conventional landing."

more page 2--->>>>Moon and beyond - India's space programme in take-off mode (Feature) - Monsters and Critics: