 "Chandrayaan 2")
One bright sunny morning in the year 2004, a group of scientists from Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) gathered at South Block in New Delhi with a new proposal. Their point was that Isro had already achieved the goals set by the great Vikram Sarabhai — using space science for communication, agriculture, climate predictions, and much more. Now, it was time to aim big and expand its footprint to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
After reviewing the proposal for the moon mission, in his poetic flourish, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee exclaimed: “Let us name it Chandrayaan!”
This marked the beginning of what turned out to be a golden moment for India in space science when Chandrayaan-3 soft-landed on the moon.
India’s current success story is filled with situations of mixed emotions, aesthetics, pain, glory, and much more.
G Madhavan Nair, who led that team of scientists as the then Isro chairman, still recalls the enthusiasm imbued in them by Vajpayee that day to complete the first mission in four years.
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It gained further momentum when Manmohan Singh came to power, and Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008.
“There was a time when people used to ask why such a huge sum of money was not being spent on the poor man. People did not have money for food, water, shelter, and clothes, so why invest in space? They stopped asking such questions when space technology began to help in daily life, and finally, Chandrayaan emerged as a crowning achievement. Today, we’ve left our mark on the lunar south pole,” Nair, who was Isro chairman during the Chandrayaan-1 mission, told Business Standard.
He views India’s discovery of water on the lunar surface as the pinnacle of his career.
M C Dathan, former director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and advisor to Kerala chief minister, had a different story about the pain and humiliation Indian scientists endured back in the 1970s.
During that time, India was taking its baby steps in space exploration. Memorable moments like transporting a rocket on a bicycle were shaping Isro’s future.
One day, a sounding rocket (a suborbital rocket) faced a technical glitch during launch and ended up landing on the premises of the College of Engineering in Thiruvananthapuram. The students there took the rocket and paraded it to Isro’s Thumba centre, around 4 kilometres away, perhaps mocking the scientists in the process.
“Now, every Indian takes pride in what Isro achieved on Wednesday. We were the first to land on the south pole of the moon. This success came as a result of a lot of pain, humiliation, and failure. Therefore, it is even sweeter,” said Dathan, who was later honoured with the Padma Shri. He added that in the initial days, it was Nasa, France, and the erstwhile USSR that provided the most help to India.
According to Dathan, the turning point in Indian space science was the success of the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) in 1994. This success followed the failure of PSLV’s first mission in September 1993, which cost India nearly ~150 crore.
Another official remembers that at that time, it was the fishermen community that staged protests.
Interestingly, the media that now praises Isro wasn’t always supportive and respectful towards Indian scientists.
Following the success of Chandrayaan-3 on Wednesday, netizens highlighted a derogatory cartoon by The New York Times, depicting a farmer with a cow knocking at the door of a room marked Elite Space Club where two men sit reading a newspaper on ‘India’s Mars mission’. The cartoon was created by Singapore-based artist Heng Kim Song.
“When the SLV (1979) mission failed and landed in the sea, they called it the ‘Sea Landing Vehicle’. When ASLV (Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle) failed, they called it the ‘Always Sea Landing Vehicle’. The media constantly criticised and drew cartoons about our failures until the 1990s,” another former scientist remarked.
After one of the aforementioned missions failed in the 1970s, there was an incident where a group of people blocked an Isro bus and jeered at them. Now, in 2023, Dathan emphasises that the same global media is singing paeans to the country’s space mission.
India’s Lander and Vikram will operate on the moon’s surface for the next fortnight. The country landed on a plateau south of Manzinus (lunar impact crater located in the southern region of the moon’s near side) and to the west of Boguslawsky (oblong-shaped lunar impact crater located near the southern lunar limb, to the northwest of the slightly larger crater Demonax, and southwest of the concentric crater Boussingault near the south pole).
As Isro chairman S Somnath stated, “This is the beginning of a Golden Era for India”, clearly a result of the struggles of the past.
