NAMBI NARAYANAN speaks with SHALINI SAKSENA what the Chandrayaan-2 mission means for the nation’s space programme and that the next step should be formation of an Asian space agency with India at the helm

In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!

— Jules Verne

The Rs 978-crore Chandrayaan-2 mission, India’s first attempt to land on the Moon’s South Pole on September 6, 2019 accomplished 90-95 per cent of the mission objectives even though Vikram did a hard landing and is yet to establish contact with base station despite being spotted by the Orbiter.

In a statement, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said: “The success criteria was defined for each and every phase of the mission, and till date, 90 to 95 per cent of the objectives have been accomplished and will continue to contribute to lunar science, notwithstanding the loss of communication with the Lander.”

The Chandrayaan-2 mission was highly complex, which represented a significant technological leap compared to its previous missions. The mission brought together an Orbiter, Lander and Rover to explore the unexplored South Pole of the Moon. Since the launch of Chandrayaan-2 on July 22, 2019, not only India but the whole world watched its progress from one phase to the next with great expectations.

India embarked on an inter-planetary mission in 2008 with its first Moon operation Chandrayaan. The Rs 386-crore mission laid the foundation for India’s Mars Orbiter Mission in terms of technologies as well as the infrastructure for future deep space missions. The Chandrayaan-1 conclusively discovered traces of water on the Moon. It also discovered water ice in the North Polar region of the Moon. It also detected magnesium, aluminium and silicon on the lunar surface.

India’s second Moon mission made it the fourth nation, after the US, Russia and China, to have achieved this feat. While India is the only nation to come closest to a successful landing on the South Pole of the Moon, probes to the satellite have had a lot of precedence. The US has touched the other side of the Moon 28 times, Russia 21 times, China six and Japan and Europe one each.  Israel’s only attempt has been a failure.

Interestingly, the partial failure of Chandrayaan-2 and the Mars missions doesn’t have an immediate impact on the current satellite programmes of ISRO. Chandrayaan-1’s mission was to only  establish the technology to reach the lunar orbit. The Mars Mission was a little more complex — it was to establish if that route could be used to reach the planet.

“On the way to Mars or any other planet, there are several hazards like gravitational pull, radiation and situations. Then there are meeting points of two planets which make it easy to transfer from one orbit to another. For Mars mission, calculations had to be made much in advance when to leave the Earth to meet that meeting point which is once a year. These are experiments which we are doing to establish technology and route. Chandrayaan-1 was with PSLV rocket. Chandrayaan-2 was with GSLV-III. Chandrayaan went with PSLV because the cryogenic programme was pushed back by 10-12 years. That mission could not carry lander, orbiter or rover. We just dropped a payload— a suggestion that came from former Late President APJ Kalam,” Nambi Narayanan, an Indian scientist and aerospace engineer and Padma Bhushan award winner, says.

With this backdrop, India has over the years achieved many things, many that were outlined by Prof Dhawan back in the late 70s, like a four ton satellite, we want to do remote sensing, telecommunication and oceanography.

“We were very clear with what we wanted with satellites. This has been achieved over a period of 30 years. With respect to deep space operations, we have not defined the goal well. If we had asked what after Chandrayaan, nobody would have said Chandrayaan-2. Today, if you ask what next, somebody may suggest Chandrayaan-3.

“But there is no need for this. What would be the goal of Chandrayaan-3? At best, to rectify the problem of 2. If rectified, so what? No one has the answer to this. Now, Gaganyaan has been announced — to sent an astronaut into space for three-four days but not to a planet. This is expected to take in 2022. An astronaut to land on Earth doesn’t need a soft landing, he can parachute. This means we don’t need to perfect soft landing for the next three-four years,” Narayanan tells you.

The prudent question to ask is whether India is going to have deep space programme beyond Gaganyaan. Narayanan says that the answer should be ‘yes’.

What we should do is to land on the Moon, then Mars and so forth. This will put us at par with the US and China, countries that  are making an attempt to go to the Moon and beyond. “Of course, India may not want to do these things. Many countries like France and Italy are not interested. If this is the stand why Gaganyaan? There is no need for it. We have yet to define our goals with respect to space. With the way things are going, we are going to go for soft landing to the Mars and the Moon. In this case, we need to perfect soft landing skills in a phased manner. This will require a bigger booster on the lines of China and the US, like the Chang 4-5 or the 180 or the Falcon, respectively. This can be done in the next three years,” Narayanan shares and explains the difference between soft landing and crash landing by giving an example.

Let’s take landing done an aircraft. When it lands smoothly, like it normally does, it is called soft landing. However, when the aircraft develops a problem and can’t land the way it should, it is called  crash landing. The same holds true Lander Vikram. The advantage of soft landing is that the instruments are intact. In a hard landing, the instruments may get damaged inside, even if one the outside it may look intact.

Narayanan tells you that this talk of India begin the fourth country to go to the Moon, needs to stop. “We are not only at par with the US and China but can be equal or even better than them. The only question is whether we are willing to bear the cost,” he says.

Does this mean that science is only about experimentation and not result? “Science is about experimentation and result. This result may not necessarily be successful. For example, we want to conduct an experiment on whether a particular thing exists. If we find it does, we can say that the experiment is successful. Take Chandrayaan-2 experiment to soft land. This experiment would have only come in use after seven-10 years. Now, we first need to complete Gaganyaan. Only then we should attempt soft landing on the Moon. Not that the time frame is a cause of worry and hurry for Chandrayaan-3,” Narayanan explains and tells you that the number of failures or successes should not be a roadblock.

“China has now gone to a part of the Moon that has not been sunlit for billions of years; this is the dark side of the Moon. They reported that they saw a jelly like substance. What that means, only time and future missions to that area will reveal. Take the US who have had 50 per cent success as has Russia. This is not a good number. Israelis failed in their lone mission. India was successful in its Mars Mission in its first attempt. China failed in its first attempt. Therefore, a failure is not a justification  to say that it should not and couldn’t happen. Obviously, some mistake has been made during landing,” Narayanan says.

Where should India go from here? What should be the next step? Is it going to be Chandrayaan 3? According to Narayanan, there is no need for it.

“We have established how to go to the Moon. While we may have not been successful in the soft landing part, there is nothing to worry about. We can rectify it with the next mission.

“From here on, we should form an Asian space agency (ASA) in line with the European Space Agency (ESA). If you look at the Asian countries, there is Indonesia, Thailand, Middle-East and even China and Japan. There are around 23 countries that come together to form a consortium and make a contributory fund. Here, India should take the lead. The second is that the space requirement of the other countries can be met and one can generate business.

“Third, it will help place the satellites in strategic positions. For example, if we need an air station, say over Dubai, then there won’t be a problem if Dubai is a part of the consortium. Also, there is news that US President Donald Trump is talking about how the route to the Moon should be regulated. It is not clear what that will entail.

“The ASA will help bring the countries together which can ease border problems as well. This should finally lead to bringing together of the ASA, ESA and NASA to tackle space issues. India can’t do it alone. For that matter, nor can the US,” Narayanan stresses.

He tells you there is need to define long-term goals for the country’s space programme and have a vision for the future.

“I had posed a similar question to Prof UR Rao and Prof Satish Dhawan, (former ISRO chairmen). They had a wait and watch policy. ‘We will look at it once we reach that stage’, they had told me. What they referring to were funding constraints. They knew they couldn’t have asked for more funds. Back then, nobody would have cared even if we had long-term goals for the outer space programmes. Today, we are somebody,” Narayanan opines.

Chandrayaan 2’s campus connect

MUSBA HASHMI touches base with college which supplied parts for Vikram

Although Prime Minster Narendra Modi and all of India hailed the Chandrayaan-2 mission as successful, for professors and doctoral students from Sona College of Technology, Salem, Tamil Nadu, Vikram’s hard landing was a deeply disappointing moment.

They had a crucial role to play in Chandrayaan-2’s attempt to land on the Moon as the college’s Special Electrical and Electronics Drives Division (SPEED) had supplied three products for the mission. These were, the fuel mixer motors that mix liquid oxygen with fuel, the doppler mechanism for Vikram module to guide the laser to ensure smooth landing on the moon and the robotic arm to enable the Vikram to collect sand and rock samples from the Moon. 

This is not the first time that the college has supplied the components to the ISRO.

They have been working with it for seven years.The R&D efforts of the SPEED division have led to the institute supplying ISRO with special purpose BLDC (Brushless DC) motors for satellites and rockets as well as lunar robots for many earlier missions.

“It was a momentous day for India as ISRO’s scientists got us so near the Moon through Chandrayaan-2. Our researchers, professors and doctoral students should not be disappointed. The Moon landing would have been the icing on the cake, but the Orbiter is working fine with eight payloads and we do have the cake. These efforts will go a long way in India’s quest to unravel what is on the Moon,” says Chocko Valliappa, VC, Sona College of Technology.

He adds that the parts were imported earlier, but SPEED supplied them at a much lower price as compared to the cost of imported components. This is not all. The college will continue to design and develop parts like stepper motors and gyroscopes for ISRO.

“We are also supplying radiation patches to protect the satellites by coating them with Quantum well-based photo detector epitaxial structure for ISRO,” he tells you.

Why South Pole?

Had India succeeded in its mission for a solft land on the South Pole of the Moon, it would have created history — no other country in the world has ever landed on this side of the Earth’s satellite. There are a few reasons why we chose South Pole:

• This part of the Moon has remained untouched by sunlight for billions of years. Its craters have been untouched by sunlight for billions of years offering an undisturbed record of the solar system's origins
• It is speculated that this side may hold million tons of water
• Lunar South Pole's regolith has traces of hydrogen, ammonia, methane, sodium, mercury, and silver, making it an untapped source of essential resources.

the orbiter

At the time of launch, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter was capable of communicating with Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu as well as the Vikram Lander. The mission life of the Orbiter is seven years and it will be placed in a 100 x100 km lunar polar orbit.

The Orbiter camera is the highest resolution camera (0.3m) in any lunar mission so far and shall provide high resolution images which will be immensely useful to the global scientific community.

The Orbiter that weighs 2,379 kg will revolve around the Moon and provide information about its evolution, topography, minerology, elemental abundance, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice.

vikram—lander

The Lander of Chandrayaan 2 is named Vikram after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme. It is designed to function for one lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days. The Vikram has the capability to communicate with IDSN at Byalalu near Bengaluru, as well as with the Orbiter and Rover. The Lander, which weighs 1,471 kg, was designed to execute a soft landing on the lunar surface. It hard landed on September 6, 2019. Even though it has been spotted by the Orbiter, there has been no communication with it for the last eight days.

pragyan—rover loaded

Chandrayaan 2's Rover is a six-wheeled robotic vehicle named Pragyan, which translates to wisdom in Sanskrit. It can travel up to 500 metres and leverages solar energy for its functioning. It can only communicate with the Lander. It weighs 27 kg.

Its mission was to sent back the measurements of moonquakes. It would also send more information about the history of the ancient rocks present on the Moon’s surface.

Courtesy: Indian Space Research Organisation

Masterminds behind lunar probe

From a farmer’s son to now Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman, the 62-year-old scientist, Kailasavadivoo Sivan, is an inspiration for many. It took the launch of Chandrayaan-2 for Sivan’s story to fly high.

Born in Mela Sarakkalvilai, near Nagercoil in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, Sivan graduated from Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1980. He then pursued aerospace engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in 1982 and joined ISRO soon after. He used to work on the design and development of launch vehicles.

Sivan is the first person to have graduated in his family. Having born to a poor farmer, Sivan had to go through a lot of financial crunch. He didn’t even have money to buy sandals and pants till he went to college. 

According to reports his father had to sell about a quarter of an acre of land to send Sivan to MIT.

He is a perfectionist who expects his team members to give their 100 per cent. He believes in leading a humble life and prefers to wear simple clothes, white being his favourite colour.

His work is well-recognised and he has several accolodates to his name: Shri Hari Om Ashram Prerit Dr Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1999) and ISRO Merit Award (2007), to name a few.

There is an adage: Behind every successful man there is a woman. This holds true when it comes to the success of Chandrayaan-2, but with a slight modification in the saying: Behind every successful mission there is a woman. Hard to believe? May be not after if one has seen the movie Mission Mangal.

Meet, Lucknow-based Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, the mission director of Chandrayan-2. The house in Rajajipuram, where Srivastava lived, is suddenly the centre of attraction and has acquired celebrity status almost overnight.

The phone line is continuously engaged and after considerable effort, Ritu's sister Varsha agreed to speak.

“We are so proud of our sister. After our parents' demise, she is the eldest in the family and has been a mother figure to me and my brother Rohit,” she said.

Varsha recalls that Ritu was always fond of the stars. “My mother would stay awake all night with didi (Ritu) when she studied. Didi was always fond of stars and would lie awake staring at the sky. Didi was curious to know what lay beyond the sky. We belong to a middle class family but Didi always yearned to go beyond the limits,” she recalled.

In 1997, Ritu received a letter inviting her to join the ISRO office in Bengaluru. The decision was tough but her parents allowed her to go and pursue her dreams.

Ritu's husband, Avinash, and her two children Aditya and Anisha, are her biggest supporters in her starry mission.