Mangalyaan, Vibrant Symbol of India’s Growing Prowess in Space Exploration

Radhakrishna Rao, 

Visiting Fellow, VIF

For a country that was badly in need of a good news, the spectacularly successful launch of India’s Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan on Nov.5 came as a heart warming development that overwhelmed Indians with a sense of ”joy and pride” .

The hoisting of the 1340-kg Indian Mars orbiter into a precise near earth orbit by means of an augmented version of the reliable , four stage Indian space workhorse, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) not only marked a big leap ahead for the Indian space programme but also catapulted India into the ranks of the select galaxy of advanced space faring nations. Indeed, this first ever Indian interplanetary mission is being envisaged as a stepping stone for India’s deeper forays into outer space in the years ahead, in keeping with India’s ambition of emerging as a technological power house of global standing.

Rightly, as pointed out by K.Kasturirangan, a former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO), Mangalyaan will be a key milestone for the Indian space programme that would also boost India’s credentials to join the future international deep space missions not only to Mars but also to other planets of the solar system. By all means, Mangalyaan is the most complex and challenging space mission ever tried out by the Indian space agency.

Indeed, the accomplishment of Mangalyaan mission in a record period of around thirty months and that too within a limited budget is one more striking instance of the “Indian space success story on a shoe string budget.” As stated by ISRO Chairman, K.Radhakrishnan, “The worth of a nation is defined by the dreams it dares to dream. ISRO dreamt a dream and made it real”. On their part, Western aerospace analysts have not minced words in describing Mangalyaan as a vibrant symbol of India’s growing prowess in space exploration. Across the world, there is a growing realization of the long strides made by India in high technology areas and the successful launch of Mangalyaan has only gone to strengthen this impression.

Considered a natural follow on to India’s highly successful maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 launched in Oct 2008, Mangalyaan has helped ISRO develop a number of new and novel technologies involved in the design, planning, management and operation of interplanetary missions. These technologies will stand ISRO in good stead while launching probes to Venus and inner asteroid belt in the years ahead. Moreover, the spin offs of the strategic technologies developed for interplanetary missions have many potential civilian applications which the Indian industry can exploit for the benefit of the country. On another front, the Indian Mars mission has all the potentials to fire the scientific imagination of the young Indian minds keen on pursuing frontier research that could also result in the development of cutting edge technologies that no country is willing to sell or share. Indeed, for a country that commenced its space journey in a very humble way with the launching of a nine kg. sounding rocket from a facility in the fishing hamlet of Thumba near to Thiruvananthapuram, the slingshot to Mars that would involve an epic trek of Mangalyaan spacecraft covering a distance of about 400-million kms in 300 days is as exciting as it is spectacular.

There is no denying the point that Mangalyaan with a price tag of Rs.4500-million is the cheapest ever ticket to Mars. The cost of Mangalyaan is said to be one tenth of what USA has spent on its latest mission to Mars, MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Violet Evolution) which is all poised for its celestial journey. Innovation, indigenisation and frugal engineering are considered the secret of India’s low cost space missions. For instance, Jeffrey Plescia, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in USA says that the cost of Indian Mars mission is less than 0.1% of India’s annual budget. ISRO has spent just about 5% of its annual budget on the Mars mission. Significantly, the widely respected British aerospace magazine, Flight International comments, “Remarkably, ISRO has spent a mere $ 75-million on the Mangalyaan mission, an astoundingly small budget for a project so complex. By comparison, Alfonso Cuaron’s acclaimed 2013 space epic, Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney was made at an estimated budget of $100-million”.

As expected, there has been trenchant criticism of the Indian Mars mission based on the argument that a country of India’s standing with the problem of widespread poverty and backwardness on hand, should not have a costly and high profile planetary mission as its priority area. However, such an argument has not found many buyers in the country. For space technology too can contribute to the advancement of the community in tandem with socio economic measures at the ground level. Stating that the Indian space programme is overwhelmingly people centric, Radhakrishnan drove home the point that” there is no question of wrong priority .In fact, this is the right priority. We have benefited the grass root level people in the country.”Indeed, the thrust of India’s INSAT communications and IRS earth observation spacecraft constellations being operated by ISRO is on diffusing the fruit of space technology into the mainstream of national development.

From aiding agriculture to disaster warning as well as supporting education and health to mapping natural resources and providing instant communications links in disaster hit areas, these two satellite constellations continue to play a stellar role in the all round development of the country. In fact, the massive evacuation of people along the coastline of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in October this year that saved human lives in thousands is a tribute to the early warning on the movement of devastating cyclone Phailin that the weather watch satellites in INSAT constellation made available to the India Meteorological Department(IMD). This is but just an example of how space technology is benefiting the nation. “Our three satellites have helped evacuate people in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh during the recent cyclones. You can see our satellites have been put to use in many such instances”, noted Radhakrishnan.

Indeed, right since inception, the focus of the Indian space programme has been on exploiting the potentials of space technology for speeding up the socio economic development of the country. Radhakrishnan has been quick to observe that while looking at the stars, ISRO has firmly been rooted in the ground.

A section of western analysts have also projected the view that Indian Mars mission is a symbol of India’s overriding ambition to attain a super power status. India, like other space faring countries has every right to project is prowess in outer space in a peaceful manner. To work towards attaining the status of a super power is a prerogative of a sovereign, independent country. Moreover, India which lost the “Industrial revolution “ bus as a nation under foreign rule, cannot afford to remain stagnant in so far as the exploration of the final frontiers is concerned. Indeed an interplanetary probe like Mangalyaan is vital to affirm India’s leadership position in outer space. USA was able to attain an unprecedented level of industrial and technological growth because of the massive investment it made on the basic science research.

As noted by Prof U R Rao, a former ISRO Chairman, just as India’s Chandrayaan-1 made research history with the discovery of water on the moon, Mangalyaan too can come out with something new about the Red Planet, many aspects of which continue to remain shrouded in mystery.” We may have something to say about the presence of methane in the Red Planet and where it comes from. That may give us indications of any form of life at all on the planet”, noted Prof.Rao, Going ahead, he expressed the view that Mangalyaan has also the potential for the advancement of science and technology in the country.

The successful accomplishment of the mission to the Red Planet will make ISRO the fourth space agency in the world to pull off this distinction. So far, only National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA, Roscosmos of Russia and European Space Agency (ESA) have logged successful missions to the Red Planet. Interestingly, around half of more than 50 missions launched so far to Mars have ended up in failure. And in Asia, success has eluded Martian probes sent by both China and Japan, the space front runners in the continent. As such, there is a perception that in the area of exploring Mars through a robotic probe, India is keen on assuming a leadership position in Asia. However, ISRO has repeatedly denied the suggestion that it is in race with other space faring countries. It was during his Independence Day speech on August 15,2012 that the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made an announcement of the Indian mission to Mars, saying that it will mark a huge step forward in the area of science and technology. “If it succeeds, Indian Mars mission would represent technological leap for this South Asian nation, pushing it ahead of its space rivals, in the field of planetary exploration,” said Wall Street Journal.

Of course, as pointed out by ISRO, the primary driving technological objective of the mission is to design and realize a spacecraft which can reach Martian transfer trajectory, orbit around Mars to study its atmosphere and map minerals while looking for signs of methane. ISRO feels that MOM is a logical extension Chandrayaan-1 mission . But then in contrast to Chandrayaan-1, mission to the Red Planet involves a longer flight and an altogether different trajectory involving a lot of hurdles on the way. According to M.Annadurai who is currently programme Director for Indian Remote Sensing, Small, Science and Student Satellites at ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore, “it provides us with opportunity to test technologies like spacecraft autonomy, long distance space communications, interplanetary navigation and miniaturized space payloads and systems.”Annadurai provided leadership to the team that realized India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission. Evidently, ISRO chose a Martian mission since there are several similarities between the earth and Mars. They include soil surface, seasons, the duration of their days and the polar ice caps.

The Indian Mars probe carries five scientific instruments with a total weight of 15-kg to study the various aspects and features of the Red Planet. All these instruments were designed and developed within the country. According to Radhakrishnan ”It has a colour camera for optical imaging of the planet’s surface, a methane sensor to monitor the presence of methane in Martian atmosphere, a thermal infrared camera to study the geological features, a Lyman Alpha Photometer to study the Martian atmosphere and a payload to study the neutral composition of the planet’s upper atmosphere.” As envisaged now, Mangalyaan is expected to help ISRO generate a first ever comprehensive map of the Red Planet. Rightly, ISRO considers the Mars mission as a symbol of India’s assured access to space.

The importance of Mars to earthlings stems from the fact that many researchers believe that Mars could be the next outpost for the human civilization to flourish in our solar system. According to Prof Rao, the Red Planet holds a great potential and relevance to earthlings. For in “about 500 years or so we might be able to use Mars as a resources base for earth”. Observes Rao, “We are running out of resources in the world. There are many people who believe Mars can be made hospitable and of course it requires a lot of efforts.” Former Indian President and internationally recognised space scientist Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam has made an impassioned plea for a well organised international collaboration to give a practical shape to the human dream of colonizing Mars in the future.

Significantly, ISRO researchers behind the Mars Orbiter Project did carefully study the failures and successes of the various missions to Mars before arriving at the spacecraft configuration and mission profile. It may be recalled that Russia’s Phobos Grunt mission to Mars that also carried a Chinese probe named Yinghuo-1 launched in Nov.2011 came cropper after the spacecraft failed to leave earth’s orbit and crashed back earth in early 2012. This mission was meant to collect the soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos and send them back to earth in a return capsule .Similarly the Japanese mission to Mars, Nozomi launched in July 1998 had, on account of a mechanical hitch, gone into a wrong trajectory and failed to reach Mars.

One of the key areas of research that many Mars probes have focussed on so far is the possibility of the existence of methane whose presence could point out to the planet having supported primitive life forms .As it is, the American Curiosity rover to Mars could hardly find credible evidence for the presence of methane on Mars. “We will be looking at Mars differently from what Curiosity has done. There can be new findings or confirmation of findings,” says S.K.Shivakumar, Director of ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore. Significantly, the American MAVEN probe which will study the atmosphere of Mars is expected to share synergy with India’s Mars mission. The sensors of both these missions will probe and analyse the dynamics of the process that resulted in the thinning of the Martian atmosphere. ”There are some overlapping objectives and at the point we are both in-orbit collecting data, we plan to work together with the data, “says Radhakrishnan.

Both India’s Mangalyaan and MAVEN spacecraft will join earth’s armada of five operational obiter and surface rovers currently exploring the Red Planet. “If all goes well, NASA’s MAVEN orbiter and Indian MOM will work together to help solve the mysteries of Mars atmosphere. We plan to collaborate on same overlapping objectives,” says Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN’s principal investigator from the University of Colorado.

Perhaps the most challenging scientific objectives of the Indian Mars probe would be finding clues for the existence of methane on the Mars. Further, the Indian Mars mission will help answer questions such as whether Mars ever had an environment in which life evolved in addition to studying the surface topography, mineral resources and microbiology and atmosphere of the Red Planet Everything going as planned, Mangalyaan will reach its final orbit around the Mars in September next .The five scientific payloads on-board the spacecraft would actively explore Mars from this position in a variety of angles for about six months.

Meanwhile, ISRO is aware that it cannot rest on its laurels. For the Mangalyaan happens to be just the beginning of a long, challenging journey into the mind boggling expanse of outer space, a large part of which remains unexplored. The philosophy that “not even the sky is the limit” continues to propel ISRO for “deeper and wider’ forays into the final frontiers. And for India, the continuing space conquest by ISRO happens to be the brightest part of its history.

Uttarakhand Tragedy: Need for Preparedness, Accountability

Sqn Ldr (Retd). S.D. MITROO

There is this apocryphal story of how three men reacted on seeing a pedestrian ahead of them falling into a ditch. While the one immediately following the victim too fell into the ditch, the second person avoided the pothole saving himself whereas the third man got hold of a cover, covered the ditch and made a safe path for himself and others to cross the ditch. The moral of the story was that the first man was a total fool, who did not learn a lesson even after seeing the man fall in the ditch in front of him; the second took advantage only for himself by avoiding the ditch but the third man was the wisest of them all, who not only saved himself but made a safe way for others too.

The story, particularly the person who followed the first victim into the ditch, reminds one of the response of various agencies to the recent Uttarakhand tragedy. There have been disasters in the country since time immemorial and all these years we have only been reactive and somehow used to manage such crises year after year.

This time again nature’s fury has left behind unaccounted deaths and untraceable persons, unimaginable environmental and economic losses and has totally changed the environmental scenario of ‘Dev Bhumi’ or the Land of Gods as the state is popularly known. All this happened in spite of similar, if not as intensive, occurrences in the past and met department’s repeated warnings. The local administration was simply caught unawares.

A study of the cloudbursts in geographic area of the present State of Uttarakhand for the period 1908 to 2013 ie 105 years, would reveal that a total of eight cloudbursts have occurred, out of which the first three occurred within the first 90 years, (leaving a nil occurrence period from 1998-2003 i.e five years) the other five have occurred in the past nine years alone from July 2004 to June 2013, leaving behind a trail of loss of human and animal lives, property and large scale of environmental erosion, each time.

What intrigues the common man’s mind is as to why there is an increase in the frequency of cloudbursts and why there is rise in the number of casualties inspite of the fact that modern high-tech gadgets for early warning, search and rescue etc., are available, to the State administration?

As for the increased frequency, Global Warming is a major contributory factor. It is time the administrative machinery is made aware of the implications of this global changes in weather. Implementation of corrective actions thus become imperative with strict penalties on defaulters. It is equally important that the administrative machinery not only stops indiscriminate exploitation of the land, through unplanned development, undue felling of the green cover and generation of avoidable atmospheric pollution, but also takes concrete steps to prevent them. Uttarakhand is a live example where large number of hotels, guest houses, dharamshalas and dhabas have mushroomed in a short period of ten to fifteen years, exploiting the soft hilly land for commercial purpose, not to forget the ever increasing number of permanently located and visiting vehicular traffic.

The core issue is that of development vis-à-vis overall growing population. After all, the increasing population needs food, clothing, housing, education, employment, medical facilities etc. But then the moot question is development at what cost; planned or unplanned; rural or only urban?

In today’s scenario, development is largely connected to politics. Bureaucrats including town planners have very little say, except making a few table drawings for the approval of the local politician. It is a known fact that, a politician who can generate more housing units or business complexes in the urban areas of his domain is a successful politician, leave alone the quality of construction or any consideration of civic amenities. One is generally not successful if he develops his rural areas, as rural areas are not known to be money spinners.

In Uttarakhand too, haphazard development has taken place in the recent past against the repeated advice of environmentalists, geologists and other experts.

Coming to met warnings, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had sent repeated messaged to the authorities in Uttarakhand regarding heavy rains. Some of the warnings and responses, as reported subsequently by The Times of India, were as under:

“The warnings had been sent to a slew of top officials, including the state’s chief secretary, the district magistrates (of the districts where the Char Dham yatra takes place), the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre, ITBP, OSD to the Char Dham yatra and other top authorities. Tragically, none realized the gravity of these warnings or acted upon them.

…. ….. ….

The first of the warnings of “heavy rains’ was issued on June 14 in the agro-advisory bulletin..”

“Jun 15, 2013: Heavy rain during next 72 hours. Yatris are requested to get back to shelter places. Heavy rains during next 72 hours with very heavy rains on June 17 - Met alert issued to DM of Rudraprayag, ITBP

Warning – Char Dham yatris are advised to postpone yatra by 4 days - Special advisory issued for pilgrims

June 16, 2013: Yatris to get back to safer places. Heavy rains likely during next 36 hours’. - Met alert to Rudraprayag DM, state chief secy

“These (alerts) happen every year, forecasting heavy rains. They say this every year, but do not point out the intensity - Subhash Kumar Uttarakhand Chief Secretary

“ ‘Very heavy rains’ this is issued during one of the rarest of the rare instances -Anand Kumar Sharma Director of State Met Dept

Such criminal neglect can only be dealt with if accountability is made mandatory in such situations. Passing of the buck should not be allowed, irrespective of whatever position the guilty person is holding.

Another major area of concern is the disaster management set-up in the country. In India, the concept itself took shape in 2005, in the wake of the Tsunami, with the Parliament enacting the Disaster Management Act, 2005, followed by the formation of the NDMA, the NIDM, NDRF and other wings of Disaster Management. It is not surprising to note that parallel to the autonomous body like NDMA, of which the Prime Minister is the Chairman, a Disaster Management Authority also functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Each of these bodies have their independent functions and are answerable to their respective department heads; yet all of them prefer to work within their own closed, water-tight confines and share nil or very little information with others. Interestingly, the controlling head of all disaster management functions at the Centre, State, District or Taluk is the Revenue department.

It has largely been observed that in their functioning, the revenue department, at all levels, works at a leisurely pace and the same applies to disaster management as well.

The Uttarakhand tragedy should be viewed as an advance warning to the administrative set-up of the country and demands a prompt and positive corrective action, at all levels of governance, not only in the affected state but across India, be it the Centre, State, District or Taluka, down to the last man.

What needs to be done

Ministry of Emergency & Disaster Management (MEDM): A separate Ministry of Emergency & Disaster Management needs to be set up, bringing all emergency services under one umbrella – Fire, Police, Medical, Met., etc. This Ministry should have its own governing body of duly qualified persons in the trade at the Centre, State, District, Taluk level. It would comprise of personnel from the central cadre, answerable only to the Central Govt. At the state & district levels, part of the lower staff man-power shall be shared by the state Govt on prorate basis, drawing the basic salary from the State funds and the deputation allowance from the Central fund;

Accountability: Strict rules on answerability and accountability should be enforced, equally on one and all, irrespective of the official position.

(The writer is Consultant on Disaster Management to several local Governments)