WE MUST BE SECOND TO NONE

The vision of ISRO is to “harness space technology for national development while pursuing
space science research and planetary exploration.”
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), formally known as Indian National Committee for
Space Research (INCOSPAR), initiated space activities in India. Keeping its record high and
dignified, ISRO broke a record by launching a total of 104 satellites into space orbit. The
reason for this success was attributed to keep the weight of the satellites below the limits.
Most of the satellites were from US, two from two from India, one each from Kazakhstan,
Israel, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and United Arab Emirates. India had nano-satellite,
designed for imaging, and mapping applications. However, it was the first time when ISRO
won the International headlines. ISRO had placed a spacecraft called mars orbiter in orbit
around the red planet.
India stood as the 4th country to do that- after US, Russia (as Soviet Union), and European
space agency and the only country to do so on its first try.
The Indian state is increasing ISRO’s budget regularly. In 2008, the organisation launched only
2 PSLVs, in 2016, it increased to 6. It is also considering to send an orbiter to Venus for
studying its cloudy atmosphere.

PHOTO SOURCE: YouTube

The question arises why ISRO got so much activated nowadays?

One of the probable reason is to be attributed to the sudden rise in the Indian nationalism.
The current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has claimed that previous leaders have
failed this nation and he is going to fix all of this. Therefore, he is making policy decisions
suddenly and drastically.
Some recent programs in ISRO are as follows,
NavIC: The Indian regional navigation satellite system (IRNSS) with an operational name of
NavIC (‘sailor’ or ‘navigator’) an autonomous regional satellite navigation system set up by
India to provide accurate real-time positioning and timing services over India and the region
extending to 1,500 kilometres (930 mile) around India.
On 15 August 2018, PM Modi announced a man mission by India in space by 2022.
Once, ISRO’s founder Vikram Sarabhai said, “We do not have the fantasy to compete with the
economically advanced nations in the exploration of moon or other planets or manned-space
flight” and added, “but we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally,
and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced
technologies to the real problems of man and society.”
One another reason for the rise of ISRO’s activities could be from the growing market of space
in general. In 2015 report from the space foundation estimated the global space economy to
be worth $323 billion. Particularly, small, inexpensive satellites are becoming more popular.
Globally there are number of rocket options for sending commercial satellites into space.
ISRO, for its part offers a relative bargain. It is cheaper to launch with ISRO for obvious reasons
(Indian labour is cheaper than say U.S. or Europe).
According to Susmita Mohanthy, co-founder and board member of Earth2Orbit, “After the
budget of the mars mission was approved the team at ISRO put together and launch it in just
14 months, no other space agency can pull off a planetary mission in such a compressed
timeframe.”

- SHRUTI SHUKLA.
B.A. (H) Political Science, 1st Year.