GSLV Mark III: ISRO aiming for the stars with crew module

Chennai: At 8.30 am on Wednesday, the countdown begins at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota for yet another ambitious launch by the country’s premier space agency. Exactly 24.30 hours later, Isro would have conducted the experimental launch of its most powerful launch vehicle GSLV-Mark III which would carry a crew module as payload and, if all goes well, successfully return off the coast of Port Blair 20 minutes later. The cost of this experiment alone is around Rs 155 crore while the total cost of the GSLV Mark III project is pegged at around Rs 2,900 crore.

Can a poor country like India afford such expensive outer space adventures? Dr M.Y.S. Prasad, director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, who has worked on all the launch vehicles produced by Isro from SLV-3 to the latest GSLV Mark III, says that it is the need of the hour and that India is still way behind the needs of the country and its billion-plus population.

“On December 7, our communication satellite GSAT-16 with 48 transponders weighing 3.2 tonnes was launched off the coast of French Guyana by European Space Agency. Along with our satellite, a 6.3 tonne DIRECTV-14 satellite was also put in the orbit by United States making the total payload weigh around 10 tonnes. In comparison, at present, we have launch vehicles that carry only 2.2 tonne satellites and GSLV Mark III, when it is fully ready in two years, will give us a capacity to carry a satellite weighing 4 tonnes,” he said.

If one has to put this in perspective, let’s take a look at the space race across the world. While US and Russia already have the capability to launch satellites weighing around 10 to 12 tonnes, our neighbour China is developing its next generation of launch vehicle March V, claiming to have a capacity  of 14 tonne satellite in the geosynchronous orbit.

Merely developing satellites is not enough as the space available in the geostationary orbit i.e. the orbit around the Earth with an orbital period matching the Earth’s rotational period, is also limited. “Every country has to apply for slots from the UN governing body and India presently has just six slots while countries like USA and Russia have several more. Unless we develop bigger and better satellites, we will not be able to meet our communication needs,” says Dr Prasad. Of the 1,396 satellites that are presently in the geostationary orbit, only 305 are active and only 10 of these satellites belong to our country.

As of now, India has a total of 228 transponders transmitting signals from Isro satellites while additional 100-odd transponders have been leased from foreign satellites. The total number of transponders needed by the country is presently around 600 and is expected to grow further with increase in population.