Another milestone in India’s satellite mission

It is indeed a matter of deep satisfaction that the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark 3 D1 (GSLV-Mark III), which was nicknamed the “fat boy” by Indian space scientists and “Bahubali” by the Telugu media, has been launched successfully. Weighing 640 tonnes, it makes it the heaviest rocket made by India till date. Not only that, the space scientists successfully deployed GSAT-19, a next generation communication satellite weighing 3,136 kg, the heaviest ever communication satellite fabricated in India, into the Geo Stationary Orbit, 36,000 km away from the earth. The D1 in the GSLV-Mark 3 stands for the first developmental flight. Considering that in the past the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had to carry the heavy communication satellites built by it to the European Space Agency’s launch pad at French Guyana, paying exorbitant fees for each launch, this new expertise to launch heavy communication satellites built by it is a major step forward in India’s space programme. The GSLV-Mark 3 launch vehicle was powered by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine, one of the most complicated technologies in the world which uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to power the rockets.

India has indeed shown to the world that its space programme is cost-effective and that this country can plan its future interplanetary missions like Chandrayaan-2 or Mangalyaan 2, to Moon and Mars without thinking too much. It is now time to seriously think of a manned mission to space, the only segment in space science in which China has an advantage over India. One major fallout of the Indian space programme would be that the highly advanced GSAT-19 will make internet speed in India as fast as that in any developed country. “This has been a major complaint for some time and the Indian space scientists are confident of addressing this issue with the Ku and Ka band transponders on board the GSAT-19 satellite,” according to Nambi Narayanan who developed the VIKAS engine in the 1990s which formed the core of Monday’s GSLV mission. Added Narayanan: “It is also the time to think seriously about our own Space Station up there in the skies, now that we have our own heavy duty launch vehicle.” Indian space scientists truly deserve kudos.