New Delhi:

In an ambitious push to space, the Union Cabinet has approved a groundbreaking suite of space missions amounting to Rs 31,772 crores. The missions pave the roadmap for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) till almost 2040.

The announcement, made during the first hundred days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term, includes several high-profile projects, including Chandrayaan-4, a mission to Venus, and enhancements to the Gaganyaan project.

ISRO Chairman Dr S Somanath expressed his enthusiasm for the approved initiatives, stating, “India’s ambitious space vision and roadmap have now been given the wings to fly high,” he said in an exclusive chat with NDTV.

The ‘fabulous four’ approvals are poised to elevate India’s status in the global space arena and address practical applications of space technology for everyday life. “At ISRO we will ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promising planetary vision to rocket India to be a developed nation or Viksit Bharat by 2047 does not falter,” Mr Somnath said.

Among the most notable projects is ‘Chandrayaan-4’, which has been allocated Rs 2,104 crores. This mission aims to collect samples from the Moon’s Shiv-Shakti area, making it a crucial precursor to India’s goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2040. Dr Somanath highlighted the mission’s importance, emphasizing its potential to enrich India’s scientific understanding of lunar geology.

“Chandrayaan-3 demonstrated it is possible for us to soft land at a location (on the moon) and then the scientific experiments did very well. Next step is to go and come back safely, and to do that we need to develop many technologies. All this is part of Chandrayaan-4. There will also be scientific missions like sample collection,” Mr Somanath says.

“If India go to moon, we will bring something new. There are many problems on bringing something back from the moon. You need to drill and collect it from different places. Then there is a robotic activity of taking the sample and storing it in a container. Then the container needs to transferred from that place to a lander which will come take off from the Moon. This process is robotic, and can go wrong,” he adds, highlighting the complexities of the mission.

Additionally, a mission to explore Venus has also received approval, further showcasing ISRO’s commitment to planetary science. The establishment of the ‘Bhartiya Antariksha Station’, a homegrown space station, alongside the development of a new mega rocket, indicates a strong commitment to enhancing India’s capabilities in human spaceflight and deep space exploration.

Dr Somanath assured the public that while ISRO aims for the stars, it remains grounded in addressing the needs of everyday citizens: “We will not forget the farmer or fisherman while exploring the solar system.” He underscored that the benefits of space technology must touch every Indian’s life, reinforcing the idea that ISRO’s endeavors are not only about exploration but also about improving life on Earth.

The ambitious roadmap set forth by the Union Cabinet signals a new era for Indian space exploration, reflecting a determination to solidify India’s position as a leading player in the global space community. With these bold initiatives, ISRO is preparing to propel India into a higher orbit.

New Delhi:

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a new moon mission “Chandrayaan-4” to develop and demonstrate technologies needed for landing of Indian astronauts on the moon and safely bring them back to Earth.

Chandrayaan-4 mission will achieve the foundational technologies for the landing of Indian astronauts on the moon (planned by year 2040) and return safely back to Earth, a statement said.

“Major technologies that are required for docking/undocking, landing, safe return to earth and also accomplish lunar sample collection and analysis would be demonstrated,” it said.

The total fund requirement for the technology demonstration mission “Chandrayaan-4” is Rs 2,104.06 crore, the statement said.

ISRO will be responsible for the development of spacecraft and launch. The mission is expected to be completed within 36 months of approval with the participation of industry and academia.

All the critical technologies are envisaged to be indigenously developed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Union Cabinet has approved space missions totalling Rs 31,772 crores paving the way for the roadmap for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) till almost 2040.

The Chandrayaan-4 mission; a mission to Venus; and the enhanced Gaganyaan mission to include the Bhartiya Antariksha Station; and the development of the new rocket Soorya all got approval from the Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The approvals come within 100 days of the third term of the new government.

Speaking to NDTV ISRO Chairman Dr S Somanath said “India’s ambitious space vision and roadmap have now been given the wings to fly high.”  

The fabulous four approvals have set ISRO to take India to a higher orbit. India cannot lag in harnessing the benefits of space technology for the aam admi as space technology touches the lives of every Indian. Mr Somnath said, “At ISRO we will ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promising planetary vision to rocket India to be a developed nation or Viksit Bharat by 2047 does not falter.”

The government approved the Chandrayaan-4 mission to develop and demonstrate the technologies to come back to Earth after successfully landing on the Moon and also collect moon samples and analyze them on Earth. This Chandrayaan-4 mission will achieve the foundational technologies and capabilities eventually for an Indian landing on the moon (planned by the year 2040) and return safely back to Earth.

Major technologies required for docking/undocking, landing, safe return to Earth and accomplishing lunar sample collection and analysis will be demonstrated. A total of Rs 2,104 crores has been allocated for this multi-stage mission which would be completed in 36 months.

India’s first mission to study Earth’s planetary neighbour, Venus, comes on the back of the highly successful maiden mission to Mars in 2013.

ISRO will now swiftly develop the Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM) which will be a significant step towards the Government’s vision of exploring and studying Venus, beyond the Moon and Mars. Venus, the closest planet to Earth and believed to have formed in conditions similar to Earth, offers a unique opportunity to understand how planetary environments can evolve very differently.

The ‘Venus Orbiter Mission’, accomplished by the Department of Space, is envisaged to orbit a scientific spacecraft in the orbit of planet Venus for a better understanding of the Venusian surface and subsurface, atmospheric processes and influence of the Sun on the Venusian atmosphere.

The study of the underlying causes of the transformation of Venus, which is believed to be once habitable and quite similar to Earth would be an invaluable aid in understanding the evolution of the sister planets, both Venus and Earth. A sum of Rs 1,236 crores for this mission is to be launched in March 2028.

Not forgetting the low earth orbit, the cabinet approved the building of the first unit of the ‘Bharatiya Anatriksh Station’ by extending the scope of the Gaganyaan program. Approval by the cabinet is given for the development of the first module of Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS-1) and undertaking missions to demonstrate and validate various technologies for building and operating BAS.

To revise the scope and funding of the Gaganyaan Programme to include new developments for BAS and precursor missions, and additional requirements to meet the ongoing Gaganyaan Programme.

Revision in Gaganyaan Programme to include the scope of development and precursor missions for BAS, and factoring one additional un-crewed mission and additional hardware requirement for the developments of the ongoing Gaganyaan Programme.

Now the human spaceflight program of technology development and demonstration is through eight missions to be completed by December 2028 by launching the first unit of BAS-1.

A total of Rs 20,193 crores has been sanctioned for the Gaganyaan plus the BAS-1 missions with a December 2029 target.

Some of these ambitious goals cannot be achieved with the capabilities of medium-lift launchers like the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LMV-3) hence the cabinet approved the development of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV), which will be a significant step towards the Government’s vision of establishing and operating the Bharatiya Antariksh Station and towards developing capability for Indian Crewed Landing on the Moon by 2040.

NGLV will have three times the present payload capability with 1.5 times the cost compared to LVM3, and will also have reusability resulting in low-cost access to space and modular green propulsion systems. The NGLV has been named ‘Soorya’ by ISRO. A sum of Rs 8,239 crores has been allocated for the development of Soorya which will be completed in 96 months.

The goals of the Indian space programme require a new generation of human-rated launch vehicles with high payload capability and reusability. Hence, the development of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) is taken up which is designed to have a maximum payload capability of 30 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit, which also has a reusable first stage.

Currently, India has achieved self-reliance in space transportation systems to launch satellites up to 10 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and 4 tonnes to Geo-Synchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) through the currently operational launch vehicles.

Susmita Mohanty wears many hats: spaceship designer, serial entrepreneur, and space diplomat. She is co-founder and director-general of Spaceport SARABHAI (S2), India’s first space-focused think-tank, which she founded in 2021. Ms. Mohanty has spent more than 25 years in the international space sector working with the Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Russians, and Indians in various capacities, and is invested in India’s transformation into a developed space economy, gender parity in the space ecosystem, and space sustainability. During an interview in her home in Bengaluru, she spoke to The Hindu about her disappointment with women being excluded from the process of choosing astronauts for the Gaganyaan’s first crewed mission, India’s place among spacefaring nations, and what our fledgling space spart-ups need to thrive. Edited excerpts follow.

Having more women in space, especially in leadership roles, seems important to you. You recently wrote about how no woman was eligible to be considered for Gaganyaan’s debut flight since the candidates were required to be combat pilots of instructor grade, which ruled out women candidates.

My reaction to the all-male Gaganyaan astronaut selection was natural since I grew up in an India where women have always been part of the ISRO [Indian Space Research Organisation] workforce and have taken to science and engineering quite happily. ISRO has a good gender balance. If you talk to women scientists in ISRO, they will tell you they enjoy working there.  Besides, India has the highest number of women pilots in the world. Instead of celebrating that and letting them compete, we are just closing the gate on them. It doesn’t make sense. 

Due to advances in space technologies, flying to space is now accessible to ordinary citizens who haven’t been part of a military environment, which is why you have space tourists. Even if the [Gaganyaan] selection committee wanted to limit the first round to IAF pilots, they could easily have allowed the women IAF pilots to compete.

We have more than a hundred women non-combat (helicopter, transport) pilots because we started accepting women in the IAF [Indian Air Force] 30 years ago, in 1993. A retired IAF friend told me that we now have 19 women combat pilots since we started inducting them in 2016.  Not allowing our women pilots to compete was a huge missed opportunity for India.

I wish I didn’t have to write these articles in the first place. We have women who are qualified, capable, and raring to go. So why shut the gate on them? Stop being gatekeepers, let there be fair play.

Can you talk about your childhood in Ahmedabad, and how it shaped your imagination about space?

I was raised in what I call Sarabhai-and-Gandhi Ahmedabad, [which is] rather different from its contemporary avatar. My school principal was a Gandhian. Local industrial families were engaged in cultural philanthropy and institution building and promoted internationalism.

Among the many great institutions that nurtured my curiosity, creativity, and renaissance-upbringing were the School of Architecture (CEPT), Kanoria Arts Centre, National Institute of Design, Space Applications Centre, Physical Research Laboratory, Centre for Environment Education, Textile Research Association, and the Indian Institute of Management.

In my years since, I have lived in multiple cities in the U.S. and Europe. I have travelled the globe. Never have I come across a city that has so many institutes of excellence in such a small radius. Raised in a milieu of space pioneers and renowned contemporary architects, I was smitten with the idea of space architecture and design.

I was a hyper-motivated kid. While in high-school, armed with a bicycle, my dad’s portable German typewriter, and access to amazing libraries, I started working on design problems of living and working in microgravity. Back then there was no internet. So I would use Indian post to mail design ideas to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and American universities. Some even responded from time to time. That kept me going.

Where does India stand today among spacefaring nations? What is the Indian space economy like compared to other countries, and the country’s potential in space research and exploration?

India has one of the oldest space programs in the world. We did our first sounding rocket launch in November 1963. Getting to a successful Moon landing has taken 60 years of hard work and perseverance with many milestones along the way. We launched our first satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975; had our first successful PSLV launch in 1993; and our first successful GSLV launch in 2001. We launched our first Moon mission in 2008 and Mars mission in 2013.

As an independent young nation, as we started to slowly recover from more than 200 years of colonial plundering, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had the foresight to commit a substantial chunk of our meagre funds to science and technology early on. That foundation is fundamental to who and where we are today, as a nation. Any country with an advanced space programme such as ours takes a good half a century to get there. Space technology is complex. 

At international space forum, when I hear anyone refer to India as an ‘emerging space nation’, I flinch. I always insist on setting the record straight. The level of ignorance, even arrogance is often staggering. The old space narrative has a strong Western bias because it was largely shaped by the Cold War and Hollywood films.

India ranks among the top six space-faring countries in terms of space capabilities, the others being the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, and France. If you count Moon landings, then France can be dropped from the list. Soon India will become one of four countries to have independent human spaceflight capability once we launch humans into low-earth orbit.

Some of us are working on crafting a new 21st-century space narrative to reflect the [space] power shift to the eastern hemisphere, with China, India and Japan leading the way.

In 2007, when I decided to leave San Francisco and move back to India, I wrote to my mentor Arthur Clarke about my decision. He wrote back saying, “That is very strategic.” When I asked him why he thought so, he wrote back saying, “Everything began in the East and is going back there.” He cited the example of Chinese alchemists having invented gunpowder and said, “No gunpowder, no rockets.”

As someone passionate about preserving the environment, both our own and in outer space, can you talk about the impact of space debris?

I worry about the Moon because it is back in the cross-hair of human exploration. The Moon’s pristine environment will most surely be impacted adversely by human greed and the need to monetise everything. Space agencies and private companies will not stop at exploration and will likely resort to [mass] extraction of resources. Some countries such as the U.S. and Luxembourg have unilaterally passed laws that will allow their private companies to extract and own space resources. The prospect of space mining is real.

That’s not all. Humans are good at littering – there is proof on earth and in low-earth orbit.

We have made low-earth orbit a dangerous place because of tonnes of debris generated due to human activities. Debris objects can be as small as a chip of paint or as big as a defunct satellite or a discarded solar panel. Debris statistics on the ESA’s website indicate we have around 36,000 objects larger than 10 cm, 1 million objects between 1 cm and 10 cm, and 130 million objects between 1 mm and 1 cm. Orbiting debris moves at 28,000 km/hour, so it packs a punch.

Some space debris burns up as it re-enters the atmosphere, some fall into the ocean, and some onto land. Not all debris re-entries are controlled. For example, NASA had jettisoned a large pallet of old batteries weighing roughly 2.6 tonnes from the orbiting International Space Station [ISS], intending for them to burn up on re-entry. A fragment survived the journey and crashed into a Florida home in March this year.

There are Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee [IADC] guidelines for post-mission disposal of space hardware, but not everyone follows these procedures

How can space play a role in monitoring the effects of the climate crisis?

Earth observation (EO) satellites don’t just help us monitor global warming and ice melts, they also help tackle the impacts of climate change. For example, my former company Earth2Orbit’s EO analytics business arm had developed models that used satellite imagery and advances in machine-learning analytics for use cases that could make cities ‘climate smart’, for example monitor pollution, heat islands, urban sprawl, underground water.

Further, space technology spin-offs and satellite services have applications that can benefit the environment. Satellite-based systems can be leveraged to help reduce vehicle emissions, make wind turbines more efficient, and help solar cells produce more energy.

Most applications use a cocktail of satellites for telecom, remote sensing, meteorology, and navigation. Companies involved in downstream applications are innovating and creating new services and products to mitigate climate change and to help people, for example farmers and fisher folk, cope with climate change.

I’d like to talk about your journey as a space entrepreneur, and the three start-ups you’ve founded on three continents: MOONFRONT in San Francisco, LIQUIFER in Vienna, and EARTH2ORBIT (E2O) in India. Why did you choose to go the entrepreneurial route?

I began my professional space journey in 1997 with a brief stint at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre. After that, I worked for the ISS programne at Boeing in southern California for almost three years. This gave me an in-depth understanding of how the space industry works.

In 2000, I left Boeing, moved to San Francisco, and started a boutique space consulting firm called MOONFRONT. I decided to become an entrepreneur because when you work for a space agency or a large company, you cannot speak your mind freely. You have to toe the line, more or less. I am the type who likes to ask questions and challenge the status quo.

Four years after MOONFRONT, I co-founded a space architecture and design firm called LIQUIFER with a friend in Vienna. LIQUIFER Systems Group, as it is now called, not only designs space exploration, habitation, and transportation systems but also makes full-scale prototypes and tests them in analogue environments.

In 2008, I moved back to India and started my third venture, EARTH2OBIT (E2O). E2O played a pivotal role in opening up the U.S. launch market for the ISRO’s PSLV rocket. We also developed EO analytics products for crop forecasting and making cities climate-smart.

In 2021, I co-founded India’s first dedicated space think tank. We provide research-based policy guidance to the government, give India an international voice, and push for reforms that can help India become a developed space economy.

There has been a lot of conversation around the privatisation of space in India. We are privatising space launches and are in the process of allowing FDI in the manufacture of satellites. Your thoughts?

Privatising routine satellite and rocket assembly for mature technologies could have started two decades ago. I am told there was reluctance and pushback from the government space agency. The fear of losing control was palpable. The fact that it is finally happening is good news. Not just privatisation but even commercialisation of ISRO-tech has started to get traction.

Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of space companies in India currently: the NewSpace start-ups, legacy companies big and small that have been catering to ISRO’s needs for several decades, and telecom companies such as Jio Satcom and the Bharti Group-backed OneWeb.

The space reforms announced by the Indian government in 2020 mark the beginning of a new phase in India’s space journey. Operationalising those reforms will take time, but it is a move in the right direction. There is now a space regulator called IN-SPACe that is the one-stop interface for space companies seeking licenses, access to environmental test facilities, and other forms of cooperation to get their businesses rolling.

What is missing is funding on the scale you find in developed space economies such as the U.S. SpaceX, for example, would not exist without the billions of taxpayer funds it gets from NASA and the DoD [Department of Defense]. An American EO satellite company’s largest customer is usually the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Reconnaissance Office. Similarly, our government needs to become an ‘anchor customer’ for our companies for them to scale and thrive. The government cannot expect our companies to run on private capital.

In 2023, IN-SPACe’s ‘Decadal Vision and Strategy for the Development of the Indian Space Economy’ claimed it will propel India’s fledgling space industry from $8.2 billion currently to $44 billion by 2033. The reality is quite humbling. In 2023, cumulatively our [250 or so] space start-ups raised a meagre $134 million.

This February, the government announced FDI [foreign direct investment] liberalisation for the space sector. The FDI money will come in only when we have absolute regulatory clarity, a somewhat evolved space insurance landscape, and better protection of intellectual property. We also need national space legislation, which is yet to happen. So there is a long way to go. We are just getting started.

The story so far: In the pre-dawn hours (IST) of June 4, a small spacecraft bearing lunar samples took off from the moon’s far side, headed for an orbit that would bring it in contact with an orbiter waiting for it. There, the spacecraft will ‘hand over’ the samples to a capsule on the returner, which will eventually bring the samples back to the earth in a two-week journey. Thus, scientists will finally have access to the first pieces of moon soil and rocks from its far side. All the spacecraft in this mission are part of China’s ambitious and ongoing Chang’e 6 mission.

What are the Chang’e missions?

China’s moon missions are called Chang’e, named for the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) launched the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP) in 2003, and the first Chang’e mission happened in 2007. Chang’e 1 created a map of the moon’s surface.

With Chang’e 2, CLEP launched phase I of its moon missions, and equipped the orbiter with a better camera. The images taken by this camera were used to prepare the Chang’e 3 mission’s lander and rover for their descent on the moon, which they successfully achieved on December 14, 2013, and started CLEP’s phase II missions.

Chang’e 4 was a precursor to Chang’e 6: in 2019, it carried the first lander and the rover to descend on the moon’s far side and explore this relatively more mysterious region. Achieving this first required another spacecraft around the moon that could ‘talk’ between ground stations on the earth and the moon’s far side. In the same year, CLEP said China would land an astronaut on the moon in a decade.

Phase III began with the Chang’e 5 mission. In late 2020, it deployed a lander on the moon’s near side. It included a mission component called an ascender, which, after collecting and stowing soil samples (specifically, the youngest volcanic lunar soil samples yet), launched itself into orbit. There, an orbiter collected the samples, transferred them to a returner, and the returner brought them to the earth.

As CLEP’s second phase III mission, Chang’e 6 is attempting to replicate its predecessor’s feat — except from the moon’s far side. This time, the scientific goal is to understand why the far side is so different from the near side.

What is the far side?

The moon is tidally locked to the earth: the lunar hemisphere facing the earth will always face the earth, and the hemisphere facing away will always face away. The far side has rockier terrain and fewer smooth plains than the near side. Scientists believe this is because of heat released by the earth when the moon was forming and thermochemical characteristics of the moon’s near-side surface.

In effect, it’s harder to land a spacecraft on the far side — and more so since it’s impossible to communicate directly from the earth with a spacecraft here: there’s no line of sight. A typical workaround is to have a second spacecraft in space that relays signals between ground stations on the earth and the surface spacecraft, making the mission more complex.

The earth screens the moon’s far side from the solar wind, which is expected to have allowed the far side to retain more helium-3. There has been some excitement in the past about using this isotope in advanced fusion reactors — not least when former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Sivan said as much in a 2018 statement. But the technology for this fusion doesn’t yet exist.

The far side is also expected to be a good place to install large telescopes, which would have a view of the universe unobstructed by the earth. ISRO and scientists at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, are currently working on such a telescope, called PRATUSH.

What is the status of Chang’e 6?

CNSA launched the 8.3-tonne Chang’e 6 orbiter-lander assembly on May 3, and it entered a lunar orbit on May 8. On May 30, the lander complex split from the orbiter and descended over a large crater called the Apollo Basin on June 1. Apollo itself lies within the much larger South Pole-Aitken Basin.

CLEP scientists coordinated this part of the mission with help from the Queqiao 2 relay satellite, which the CNSA launched in February this year into an elliptical orbit around the moon. Its other relay satellite, Queqiao 1, is in a halo orbit around the second earth-moon Lagrange point. (Note: Aditya-L1 is in a halo orbit around the second earth-Sun Lagrange point.)

Once down and operational in the Apollo Basin, a drill plunged into the soil, and with help from a scoop extracted about 2 kg of far-side material, and transferred it to the ascender. On June 4, the ascender took off for moon orbit, where it’s expected to rendezvous with the orbiter, transfer the samples to a capsule in the returner, which is finally expected to return to the earth, crashing somewhere in Inner Mongolia on June 25.

What might the samples reveal?

Since Chang’e 6 is a Chinese mission, the ‘what’ depends on the samples as much as ‘by whom’ and ‘when’. CNSA hasn’t been sharing periodic and detailed updates, as has been expected from other space programmes.

Once CNSA retrieves the sample-bearing capsule, Chinese scientists will have first crack at it before sharing access with foreign research groups based on their proposals. It’s unknown whether any Indian research groups have applied for access.

Scientifically, the far-side samples are expected to inform insights about why the moon is the way it is and the formation of planets.

When it completed the Chang’e 5 mission, China became the first country to successfully execute a robotic lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union did in 1976. China was also the first country to execute an autonomous soft-landing on the moon’s far side with its Chang’e 4 mission and — if the returner brings the samples safely back to the earth — will become the first and only country to do so from the moon’s far side as well.

CNSA is expected to launch asteroid and Mars sample-return missions in 2025 and 2030, respectively.

India currently has no plans to explore the moon’s far side. ISRO’s Chandrayaan programme is expected to launch a lunar sample-return mission in 2028, but that is likely to be delayed. India is a signatory of the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, an arrangement that’s expected to have India and other accord members share knowhow to more cooperatively explore the moon next decade.

China is not a part of the accords.

(The details in this article are as of 4 pm on June 6, 2024.)

S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), attributes the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon to “the result of the hard work of thousands of people in ISRO”, the “rigour of the reviews”, and “corrective action taken meticulously.”

In an interview with T.S. Subramanian in Bengaluru, Dr. Somanath asserted that the launch of the LVM-3 rocket on July 14 from Sriharikota and its placing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into its earth-bound orbit was the “most critical event” of the mission. He also spoke about the significance of the hop test conducted with the Vikram lander on the moon, said that “we are in the process of thinking about” a sample return mission from the moon, and shared his thoughts on the Aditya-L1 mission.

Question: How confident were you about the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success? What were the contributing factors that led to the success – to the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon and the rover Pragyan sliding down from Vikram?

Answer: There were many. The first and foremost is Chandrayaan-2’s unsuccessful attempt itself. When there is an unsuccessful attempt, it gives a lot of information. The analysis of that event gave us so [many] additional insights which were not available in the Chandrayaan-2 time frame itself. We understood the deficiencies very well. There were multiple deficiencies. It was a chain of events that caused the failure. In any rocket mission, we make sure that one event does not propagate. If one event propagates and results ultimately in failure, it means the protection mechanisms you had planned are not functioning.

There were at least five different events that culminated in the failure. There were windows left for the failure to propagate.  Once we understood them, we looked at what more could happen in similar lines. Once they were understood, we devised a set of tests that were much more rigorous and involved than what we did earlier. All these tests were done without a single item being dropped. All the tests’ results were reviewed and analysed, and corrective action taken meticulously. It took almost four years of work to be done. That is why there was such a long gap between Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3.

You know every success comes not (repeat not) out of review or checks but it is the work of the people… So you have to challenge them. Unless you challenge them, unless they feel insecure, they will not do a great job. Complacency is dangerous. My job was to create an awareness about themselves… You have to stir them, challenge them. This is what we did.

Last time [during the Chandrayaan-2 mission], we had a problem with the software; we had problems with algorithms; we had problems with hardware; and we had problems with implementation. There was inadequacy of thrust.

Was the removal of the central, fifth engine in the lander a contributing factor to Chandrayaan-3’s success? Originally, there were only four engines in Chandrayaan-2 but a fifth engine was added. This additional fifth, middle engine in Chandrayaan-2 did not perform well. Time was running out. Fuel was running out.

No, no. I will explain. It had nothing to do with the failure or success of the fifth engine. The fifth engine was necessary in [the lander of] Chandrayaan-2 because only that much thrust was necessary. Only the central engine was used for the final landing. If you have four engines, a fifth engine is a possibility. A central engine was necessary in Chandrayaan-2 because the thrust of that engine matched with the thrust of the mass of the craft. But when it came to Chandrayaan-3, the mass of the craft was 250 kg more. A single engine would be unable to sustain such a mass. So you have to fire two engines.  When you have to fire two engines, four is a better configuration. The fifth engine was deleted in Chandrayaan-3 because the mass of the landing craft increased [and you needed two engines to fire]. The fifth engine in Chandrayaan-2 had nothing to do with the mission’s failure or success.

You had chosen a bigger area on the lunar surface to land now. Was it another contributing factor to Vikram’s successful landing?

Last time, we had an area of half a km by half a km to land. One of the biggest flaws last time was that we were trying to land exactly at a [particular] location. So the programme was trying to move the lander to that point and then land. Although it could have landed safely, it was not allowing. The software was trying to push it to that point. This was not really necessary.  We could have landed in a place away. We could have been left with no time to land.

We had a wider area this time. But a wider area was not possible last time because we did not have good images of the [lunar surface then]. We were actually imaging prior to the orbit and identifying the landing location from the previous orbit, sending it to the earth, and saying, “This is the location.”

This time, we already had the pictures from Chandrayaan-2. Using those pictures, we could choose a wider area. It was pre-planned.  This time, there was no taking pictures from the previous orbit and analysing them. So Chandrayaan-2 helped Chandrayaan-3 to land safely. A wider area of 4.5 km by 2.5 km was selected this time. We were supposed to land in the middle of it. We landed within 300 metres of it. 

You listed five “critical events” during the entire Chandrayaan-3 mission. They were the launch of the LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) rocket and its putting Chandrayaan-3 first into earth-bound orbit; the propulsion module with the lander being put into trans-lunar orbit; the propulsion module being captured by the moon’s gravity; the separation of the lander from the propulsion module; and the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon. In your estimate, which was the most critical of these five events?

Undoubtedly, it was the launch.

But the LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) rocket had had six successful flights in a row already.

People take it for granted that the launch is just a routine affair. But the launch is much more complex than even the Chandrayaan-3 satellite which is such a simple, upper stage of the PSLV only. But it has a little more sensors and software. That is all. But a rocket is much more complex. It has to go through the atmosphere, do the turning, do the work under severe conditions, experience stress and strain, and reach the correct orbit. The number of systems [working in a rocket] is ten times more than that of Chandrayaan-3 craft. The propulsion, algorithms, gyros, mechanisms, sensors and so many complex events are taking place. Yet the rocket has to be successful. But people take it for granted. “It is all child’s play” [people think]. The good part is that we are doing the launch multiple times. If we do it again and again, we have the confidence. That is all the result of the work of thousands of people. Chandrayaan-3 is also such a result.

I consider the launch [to have been] the most critical event because there is no intervention in that. It is fully autonomous. There is no human intervention.

It is totally autonomous…

From lift off, you give the command, up to the injection of the satellite into orbit, there is no human intervention. But manoeuvres of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft such as its trans-lunar injection, its being captured by the moon, Vikram landing on the moon, everything is with our intervention. All of these, we can intervene at any point. We can change the software. We can change the parameters. We can land appropriately. All these are possible except in the launch. That is why the launch is more critical.

Can you explain the expected behaviour and the actual behaviour of Vikram during the landing process?

Actually, the landing process is a very complex process. It is the reverse of the rocket taking off. The rocket takes off vertically and finally becomes horizontal.

It will become tangential to the earth. It will continuously take an arc from the lift-off to the injection of the satellite into orbit. 

During the landing process, the lander has to come down from a high velocity to low velocity. In this case, the lander could have come down straight away. But we did not plan it like that. In this mission, in-between, we introduced a lot of check-points. From 30 km, it will come down to 7.80 km, then it will come down to 150 metres. It will then do certain checks. The lander will hover at these points. This hovering was necessary to do certain instruments’ verification. [For instance) Altimeter. In the general soft-landing, all these are not necessary. It made the whole landing process a little more complex. It is longer than needed. It will consume more fuel.

After the confidence building resulting from Chandrayaan-3, the landing process in the future missions will be smoother and without break. It will be continuously coming down from one point to another. It will be more fuel-efficient and faster.

One of the problems during the Chandrayaan-2 landing was the way of landing. We had one section called the rough braking phase, then the camera coasting phase, the fine braking phase and the terminal descent phase. Conversion into four different phases is not really necessary. It can seamlessly continue.

We did a scenario of continuous landing in case of some emergency where the sensors need not come into picture. In future missions, we will do [it] like that. This landing in Chandrayaan-3 followed exactly what we had planned. The velocity reduction, orientation changes etc. happened perfectly. It did the hovering exactly. In the last 150 metres, we had some time to study the lunar surface and see whether there were any boulders. The lander moved a little bit. We identified that it moved a little bit to see whether it was clear of rocks. It landed very safely. Almost all the sensors worked… So I must say it was a perfect landing.

What is the significance of the hop test done by the Vikram lander? It hopped 50 cm and it rose a little bit in the air.

In any mission, the craft which goes to the moon or Mars should come back. Otherwise, it will be a one-way mission. The vehicle is supposed to do a two-way mission. If you do a two-way mission, the vehicle will take off from the moon’s surface and come back to the earth. When you take off from the moon’s surface, it is a different algorithm. It is not a landing algorithm. It is a rocket algorithm. It has to go into orbit. From the orbit, it has to restart and come back to the earth. If you do it, the cycle is complete

When human beings go to the moon, all these have to be achieved. We have to learn all these in steps. I thought that after this primary mission goes off well, why don’t we start trying it out [the hop test]. It is new thinking. A week after the landing, we mooted this idea. Once all the mission’s objectives were met, why can’t we do some trials … to see whether it is possible. But we could not do it fully. If you take off, it can actually take off. There was no issue. But people were scared. The lander can fail. It can topple. It should not jeopardise the mission. After a week, the daylight will come. So we decided that we will do a short pulse.

A short jump?

Yes, a short jump. If you don’t stop, it will continue. The hopping is to show it rises to a certain height, it can land and to see whether our control systems, propulsion systems and sensors have worked well. This is the trial here. It worked reasonably well.

Is it a trial for the sample-return mission?

Chandrayaan-3 configuration cannot work for a sample return mission. You have to design a new craft, a new approach. It requires more mass, a higher payload. Then a sample return mission is possible. The travel for coming back from the moon to the earth requires energy. We have to plan for that. We are in the process of thinking about it.

You have sent Aditya-L1 to study the sun’s corona, the solar flares, the solar winds etc. What made you choose the sun for study? Is it because “Without the sun, you cannot study the earth”?

The study of the sun is not a new thing. We have the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad. It has a research group which is focused on the study of the sun. We have a solar observatory at Udaipur. It is under the PRL. There are ground-based observations of the sun happening regularly. There are multiple institutions such as the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and others concentrating on sun-related studies.

Once a small team of scientists is there, it is good to look at the sun. Then the question of developing the instruments to study the sun came up. Three years ago, a discussion on how to develop these instruments began… From the time of U R Rao [former ISRO Chairman], discussions have been taking place. The idea is good but somebody has to develop the instruments.

Vikram Sarabhai was interested in the study of the sun.

Many missions to study the sun had already taken place. They were done the world-over by the Americans, the Europeans and others. We now have a little more understanding of the type of instruments needed to be built. We decided that our instruments must be unique in their ability to observe the sun. That is how the seven instruments were identified for Aditya L1. Solar coronagraph was developed by ISRO and the IIA. It looks at the solar corona, solar mass ejection etc. They help us in modelling the corona.

IUCAA’s instrument is for ultraviolet radiation. They have reasonable expertise in it. The VSSC, the PRL and others built the remaining instruments. The Space Physics Laboratory (SPL), Thiruvananthapuram, looks at the sun’s particles, its low-energy and high-energy X-rays, particle emissions, its magnetic influence and so on.

The importance of Aditya L1 is that it actually connects the solar emissions to particle emissions to X-ray emissions to magnetic influence. So there is a chain of connected events. In other missions, these types of [connected] measurements are not done. You measure coronal mass ejections and no other correlated measurements. If you do correlated measurements and there is a magnetic influence happening, I can relate to coronal mass ejections. This means these measurements are inter-related. They help in long-term predictions of the impact of such emissions on our sun.

What is the current status of the propulsion module of the Chandrayaan-3 mission? And what is its SHAPE (Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth) payload doing?

The propulsion module is going around the moon in a 100-km orbit. Its SHAPE payload is observing the earth… That data is being continuously collected.

With the success of the Mars orbiter, Chandrayaan-3, and Aditya L1 missions, will ISRO be concentrating more on interplanetary missions? Will you ask the private companies to build and launch application satellites?

Nothing like that. Scientific missions have been done by ISRO only. It may not have commercial value. If commercial values are there, industries will be interested. Otherwise, going to the moon and doing the sun mission, who will be interested? They are national missions with a certain objective of growing a scientific pool within the country and creating a certain capability. It has to be publicly funded. It cannot be private.

Of course, tomorrow, there is asteroid-mining and commercial opportunities are there, private companies will be interested. Private companies cannot work without profitability.

Another point you mentioned is whether all application-oriented satellites will be launched by private companies. That may not be possible because it goes with commercial viability. If they are not commercially viable, they will not implement some of the technologies. We have to build advanced communication satellites, with R&D components. We will be building hundreds of satellites. We will look at [satellites with] synthetic aperture radars, which are scientific in nature than observation. Such things as strategic satellites, we will continue to build.

How do you view in totality the three Chandrayaan, the Mars Orbiter, and the Aditya-L1 missions?

Space has always been an inspirational domain for scientists who want to pursue a career in science, engineering and technology. Every young boy and girl will say that he or she wants to become an astronomer, astrophysicist, and so on. Their career will take them to many places. They are fascinated by celestial bodies… Space technology is such an inspirational domain. We also know it is a complex domain. For countries like India, there are questions being asked even today about its relevance. During Sarabhai’s time, there were a lot of such questions. These types of missions [to the moon, Mars and so on] will reduce the number of such questions.

S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), attributes the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon to “the result of the hard work of thousands of people in ISRO”, the “rigour of the reviews”, and “corrective action taken meticulously.”

In an interview with T.S. Subramanian in Bengaluru, Dr. Somanath asserted that the launch of the LVM-3 rocket on July 14 from Sriharikota and its placing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into its earth-bound orbit was the “most critical event” of the mission. He also spoke about the significance of the hop test conducted with the Vikram lander on the moon, said that “we are in the process of thinking about” a sample return mission from the moon, and shared his thoughts on the Aditya-L1 mission.

Question: How confident were you about the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success? What were the contributing factors that led to the success – to the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon and the rover Pragyan sliding down from Vikram?

Answer: There were many. The first and foremost is Chandrayaan-2’s unsuccessful attempt itself. When there is an unsuccessful attempt, it gives a lot of information. The analysis of that event gave us so [many] additional insights which were not available in the Chandrayaan-2 time frame itself. We understood the deficiencies very well. There were multiple deficiencies. It was a chain of events that caused the failure. In any rocket mission, we make sure that one event does not propagate. If one event propagates and results ultimately in failure, it means the protection mechanisms you had planned are not functioning.

There were at least five different events that culminated in the failure. There were windows left for the failure to propagate.  Once we understood them, we looked at what more could happen in similar lines. Once they were understood, we devised a set of tests that were much more rigorous and involved than what we did earlier. All these tests were done without a single item being dropped. All the tests’ results were reviewed and analysed, and corrective action taken meticulously. It took almost four years of work to be done. That is why there was such a long gap between Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3.

You know every success comes not (repeat not) out of review or checks but it is the work of the people… So you have to challenge them. Unless you challenge them, unless they feel insecure, they will not do a great job. Complacency is dangerous. My job was to create an awareness about themselves… You have to stir them, challenge them. This is what we did.

Last time [during the Chandrayaan-2 mission], we had a problem with the software; we had problems with algorithms; we had problems with hardware; and we had problems with implementation. There was inadequacy of thrust.

Was the removal of the central, fifth engine in the lander a contributing factor to Chandrayaan-3’s success? Originally, there were only four engines in Chandrayaan-2 but a fifth engine was added. This additional fifth, middle engine in Chandrayaan-2 did not perform well. Time was running out. Fuel was running out.

No, no. I will explain. It had nothing to do with the failure or success of the fifth engine. The fifth engine was necessary in [the lander of] Chandrayaan-2 because only that much thrust was necessary. Only the central engine was used for the final landing. If you have four engines, a fifth engine is a possibility. A central engine was necessary in Chandrayaan-2 because the thrust of that engine matched with the thrust of the mass of the craft. But when it came to Chandrayaan-3, the mass of the craft was 250 kg more. A single engine would be unable to sustain such a mass. So you have to fire two engines.  When you have to fire two engines, four is a better configuration. The fifth engine was deleted in Chandrayaan-3 because the mass of the landing craft increased [and you needed two engines to fire]. The fifth engine in Chandrayaan-2 had nothing to do with the mission’s failure or success.

You had chosen a bigger area on the lunar surface to land now. Was it another contributing factor to Vikram’s successful landing?

Last time, we had an area of half a km by half a km to land. One of the biggest flaws last time was that we were trying to land exactly at a [particular] location. So the programme was trying to move the lander to that point and then land. Although it could have landed safely, it was not allowing. The software was trying to push it to that point. This was not really necessary.  We could have landed in a place away. We could have been left with no time to land.

We had a wider area this time. But a wider area was not possible last time because we did not have good images of the [lunar surface then]. We were actually imaging prior to the orbit and identifying the landing location from the previous orbit, sending it to the earth, and saying, “This is the location.”

This time, we already had the pictures from Chandrayaan-2. Using those pictures, we could choose a wider area. It was pre-planned.  This time, there was no taking pictures from the previous orbit and analysing them. So Chandrayaan-2 helped Chandrayaan-3 to land safely. A wider area of 4.5 km by 2.5 km was selected this time. We were supposed to land in the middle of it. We landed within 300 metres of it. 

You listed five “critical events” during the entire Chandrayaan-3 mission. They were the launch of the LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) rocket and its putting Chandrayaan-3 first into earth-bound orbit; the propulsion module with the lander being put into trans-lunar orbit; the propulsion module being captured by the moon’s gravity; the separation of the lander from the propulsion module; and the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon. In your estimate, which was the most critical of these five events?

Undoubtedly, it was the launch.

But the LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) rocket had had six successful flights in a row already.

People take it for granted that the launch is just a routine affair. But the launch is much more complex than even the Chandrayaan-3 satellite which is such a simple, upper stage of the PSLV only. But it has a little more sensors and software. That is all. But a rocket is much more complex. It has to go through the atmosphere, do the turning, do the work under severe conditions, experience stress and strain, and reach the correct orbit. The number of systems [working in a rocket] is ten times more than that of Chandrayaan-3 craft. The propulsion, algorithms, gyros, mechanisms, sensors and so many complex events are taking place. Yet the rocket has to be successful. But people take it for granted. “It is all child’s play” [people think]. The good part is that we are doing the launch multiple times. If we do it again and again, we have the confidence. That is all the result of the work of thousands of people. Chandrayaan-3 is also such a result.

I consider the launch [to have been] the most critical event because there is no intervention in that. It is fully autonomous. There is no human intervention.

It is totally autonomous…

From lift off, you give the command, up to the injection of the satellite into orbit, there is no human intervention. But manoeuvres of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft such as its trans-lunar injection, its being captured by the moon, Vikram landing on the moon, everything is with our intervention. All of these, we can intervene at any point. We can change the software. We can change the parameters. We can land appropriately. All these are possible except in the launch. That is why the launch is more critical.

Can you explain the expected behaviour and the actual behaviour of Vikram during the landing process?

Actually, the landing process is a very complex process. It is the reverse of the rocket taking off. The rocket takes off vertically and finally becomes horizontal.

It will become tangential to the earth. It will continuously take an arc from the lift-off to the injection of the satellite into orbit. 

During the landing process, the lander has to come down from a high velocity to low velocity. In this case, the lander could have come down straight away. But we did not plan it like that. In this mission, in-between, we introduced a lot of check-points. From 30 km, it will come down to 7.80 km, then it will come down to 150 metres. It will then do certain checks. The lander will hover at these points. This hovering was necessary to do certain instruments’ verification. [For instance) Altimeter. In the general soft-landing, all these are not necessary. It made the whole landing process a little more complex. It is longer than needed. It will consume more fuel.

After the confidence building resulting from Chandrayaan-3, the landing process in the future missions will be smoother and without break. It will be continuously coming down from one point to another. It will be more fuel-efficient and faster.

One of the problems during the Chandrayaan-2 landing was the way of landing. We had one section called the rough braking phase, then the camera coasting phase, the fine braking phase and the terminal descent phase. Conversion into four different phases is not really necessary. It can seamlessly continue.

We did a scenario of continuous landing in case of some emergency where the sensors need not come into picture. In future missions, we will do [it] like that. This landing in Chandrayaan-3 followed exactly what we had planned. The velocity reduction, orientation changes etc. happened perfectly. It did the hovering exactly. In the last 150 metres, we had some time to study the lunar surface and see whether there were any boulders. The lander moved a little bit. We identified that it moved a little bit to see whether it was clear of rocks. It landed very safely. Almost all the sensors worked… So I must say it was a perfect landing.

What is the significance of the hop test done by the Vikram lander? It hopped 50 cm and it rose a little bit in the air.

In any mission, the craft which goes to the moon or Mars should come back. Otherwise, it will be a one-way mission. The vehicle is supposed to do a two-way mission. If you do a two-way mission, the vehicle will take off from the moon’s surface and come back to the earth. When you take off from the moon’s surface, it is a different algorithm. It is not a landing algorithm. It is a rocket algorithm. It has to go into orbit. From the orbit, it has to restart and come back to the earth. If you do it, the cycle is complete

When human beings go to the moon, all these have to be achieved. We have to learn all these in steps. I thought that after this primary mission goes off well, why don’t we start trying it out [the hop test]. It is new thinking. A week after the landing, we mooted this idea. Once all the mission’s objectives were met, why can’t we do some trials … to see whether it is possible. But we could not do it fully. If you take off, it can actually take off. There was no issue. But people were scared. The lander can fail. It can topple. It should not jeopardise the mission. After a week, the daylight will come. So we decided that we will do a short pulse.

A short jump?

Yes, a short jump. If you don’t stop, it will continue. The hopping is to show it rises to a certain height, it can land and to see whether our control systems, propulsion systems and sensors have worked well. This is the trial here. It worked reasonably well.

Is it a trial for the sample-return mission?

Chandrayaan-3 configuration cannot work for a sample return mission. You have to design a new craft, a new approach. It requires more mass, a higher payload. Then a sample return mission is possible. The travel for coming back from the moon to the earth requires energy. We have to plan for that. We are in the process of thinking about it.

You have sent Aditya-L1 to study the sun’s corona, the solar flares, the solar winds etc. What made you choose the sun for study? Is it because “Without the sun, you cannot study the earth”?

The study of the sun is not a new thing. We have the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad. It has a research group which is focused on the study of the sun. We have a solar observatory at Udaipur. It is under the PRL. There are ground-based observations of the sun happening regularly. There are multiple institutions such as the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and others concentrating on sun-related studies.

Once a small team of scientists is there, it is good to look at the sun. Then the question of developing the instruments to study the sun came up. Three years ago, a discussion on how to develop these instruments began… From the time of U R Rao [former ISRO Chairman], discussions have been taking place. The idea is good but somebody has to develop the instruments.

Vikram Sarabhai was interested in the study of the sun.

Many missions to study the sun had already taken place. They were done the world-over by the Americans, the Europeans and others. We now have a little more understanding of the type of instruments needed to be built. We decided that our instruments must be unique in their ability to observe the sun. That is how the seven instruments were identified for Aditya L1. Solar coronagraph was developed by ISRO and the IIA. It looks at the solar corona, solar mass ejection etc. They help us in modelling the corona.

IUCAA’s instrument is for ultraviolet radiation. They have reasonable expertise in it. The VSSC, the PRL and others built the remaining instruments. The Space Physics Laboratory (SPL), Thiruvananthapuram, looks at the sun’s particles, its low-energy and high-energy X-rays, particle emissions, its magnetic influence and so on.

The importance of Aditya L1 is that it actually connects the solar emissions to particle emissions to X-ray emissions to magnetic influence. So there is a chain of connected events. In other missions, these types of [connected] measurements are not done. You measure coronal mass ejections and no other correlated measurements. If you do correlated measurements and there is a magnetic influence happening, I can relate to coronal mass ejections. This means these measurements are inter-related. They help in long-term predictions of the impact of such emissions on our sun.

What is the current status of the propulsion module of the Chandrayaan-3 mission? And what is its SHAPE (Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth) payload doing?

The propulsion module is going around the moon in a 100-km orbit. Its SHAPE payload is observing the earth… That data is being continuously collected.

With the success of the Mars orbiter, Chandrayaan-3, and Aditya L1 missions, will ISRO be concentrating more on interplanetary missions? Will you ask the private companies to build and launch application satellites?

Nothing like that. Scientific missions have been done by ISRO only. It may not have commercial value. If commercial values are there, industries will be interested. Otherwise, going to the moon and doing the sun mission, who will be interested? They are national missions with a certain objective of growing a scientific pool within the country and creating a certain capability. It has to be publicly funded. It cannot be private.

Of course, tomorrow, there is asteroid-mining and commercial opportunities are there, private companies will be interested. Private companies cannot work without profitability.

Another point you mentioned is whether all application-oriented satellites will be launched by private companies. That may not be possible because it goes with commercial viability. If they are not commercially viable, they will not implement some of the technologies. We have to build advanced communication satellites, with R&D components. We will be building hundreds of satellites. We will look at [satellites with] synthetic aperture radars, which are scientific in nature than observation. Such things as strategic satellites, we will continue to build.

How do you view in totality the three Chandrayaan, the Mars Orbiter, and the Aditya-L1 missions?

Space has always been an inspirational domain for scientists who want to pursue a career in science, engineering and technology. Every young boy and girl will say that he or she wants to become an astronomer, astrophysicist, and so on. Their career will take them to many places. They are fascinated by celestial bodies… Space technology is such an inspirational domain. We also know it is a complex domain. For countries like India, there are questions being asked even today about its relevance. During Sarabhai’s time, there were a lot of such questions. These types of missions [to the moon, Mars and so on] will reduce the number of such questions.