Countdown begins for Indian in space

Ten days into the New Year, India will launch a space capsule.The 50-kg capsule, which will be brought back after 15-30 days...

Ten days into the New Year, India will launch a space capsule.

The 50-kg capsule, which will be brought back after 15-30 days, will be the country8217;s first big step towards a manned space mission.

It8217;s the first time the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO will test its 8220;re-entry and recovery8221; technology. The capsule will fall somewhere in the Bay of Bengal and will be recovered by the Navy.

The re-entry and recovery phase is the most crucial aspect of any manned mission in outer space and by putting it to test, sources said, ISRO will send a clear signal that India has started preparations for sending a man to space. This will mark a key shift from ISRO8217;s policy to restrict space exploration to meet national development goals.

In fact, this technology was being part-tested by dropping it from different heights using helicopters till now. But this is the first serious attempt at mastering this technology by bringing back a capsule from outer space. Only US, Russia and China have so far sent manned missions to space.

The capsule is to be launched on the PSLV C7 that will also put in orbit Cartosat 2. Two other satellites, one from Indonesia, the other from Argentina, will also be launched, making it the first time that a launch will carry four payloads. Until now, ISRO8217;s launch vehicles have not carried more than three payloads.

The decision to test re-entry and recovery technology was taken after about 80 scientists from the across the country gave their unanimous consent to sending a manned mission to space at a conference in Bangalore in November.

Story continues below this ad

The idea of such a brainstorming conference came from PM Manmohan Singh after ISRO head G Madhavan Nair made a presentation to him on October 17.

The capsule experiment will allow ISRO to deal with problems that occur during the re-entry phase. It was during this critical phase that space shuttle Columbia carrying Kalpana Chawla disintegrated. A host of areas that ISRO had never dealt with like temperature changes during re-entry would be tested for the first time.

The other objective of the mission is the safe recovery of the capsule. For this, co-ordination with the Navy is already underway.