When Mangalyaan dropped into a perfect orbit around Mars on Tuesday morning, it marked two important milestones in India’s space career. The country’s space industry has now graduated from being a supplier of cheap launch services to a possible provider of cheap space technologies, from remote sensing equipment to whole satellites. Besides, Mangalyaan’s timing was propitious. Just hours before it tested its apogee motor in preparation of orbit insertion, Nasa’s Maven (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission) spacecraft preceded it into orbit. Both missions will generate data about the Martian atmosphere and address one of the oldest questions of planetary science: why did Mars lose its atmosphere? The two missions are roughly complementary, since Mangalyaan is about 400 km above the Martian surface at its closest approach while Maven is much closer at 150 km. They will share data and their combined outcome could be greater than the sum of two independent missions. The collaboration marks yet another step in a developing Indo-US partnership in space. In 2009, Isro’s Chandrayaan had provisionally answered another old question about space, when it indicated the presence of water at the lunar pole. Last year, using data from Chandrayaan’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Nasa confirmed the existence of magmatic water beneath the lunar crust.
This partnership, a pleasant change from the days when India was demonised for allegedly developing dual-use hardware, will mature over time. But already, tacitly, Mangalyaan has made India’s pitch to the fast-growing satellite and technology market by demonstrating Isro’s capability to deliver precision services at bargain-basement rates. The agency has put foreign payloads into earth orbit but now, it can enter the interplanetary space launch and planet research markets. Besides, the demand for launch vehicles for micro and nano satellites has been growing much faster than that for large payloads. This rideshare segment already faces launch delays, is price sensitive and will grow rapidly as agencies begin to operate clouds of small satellites, which can be more economical than single craft. Private participation in space research, which is imminent, and corporates that want their own hardware in space for security reasons, represent future markets.
Not since the Indira Gandhi era has government made the space establishment so central to the project of nation-building. India was insecure in a violently bipolar world in her time, technology poverty was impoverishing the nation and self-sufficiency was the imperative. Today, space science offers forex earnings and technological clout. The new imperative is to use space science to leverage a premium place for India in a rapidly technologising and intimately connected world.
