Lunar odyssey Chandrayaan-3 lands safely: ISRO flight goes back six decades
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, August 23
It was in August of 1961, at the urging of Homi Bhabha, then chairman of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), that space research was first identified as key area for national research and incorporated into the AEC mandate.
Soon, Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), led by Vikram Sarabhai, another Cambridge-returned scientist like Bhabha, was selected to nurture the nascent space science. first PM Jawaharlal Nehru at the helm, PRL was co-opted into the AEC board and in February 1962 the Department of Atomic Energy created The Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) under the stewardship of Sarabhai.
INCOSPAR was to later become ISRO, which used science to power India’s developmental needs in line with Nehru’s vision. A massive setback to the programme came on December 25, 1971, when Sarabhai, 52, died. He was then chairing the AEC and leading the space programme too.
His demise placed on then PM Indira Gandhi the responsibility of choosing a suitable replacement, a task in which she was assisted by her Principal Secretary PN Haksar, who shaped the appointment of Satish Dhawan, then Director of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, as the new leader of Indian’s space programme.
Jairam Ramesh’s book, ‘Intertwined Lives: PN Haksar and Indira Gandhi’, dwells on this key transition. “Dhawan was a distinguished aeronautical engineer who had completed his doctorate at the prestigious California Institute of Technology… Haksar got Indira Gandhi to send him a personal letter,” the book records. Dhawan accepted the role on two conditions — he would continue to lead the IISc and the proposed Space Commission would be headquartered in Bengaluru.
The terms were accepted and on June 12, 1972, the Department of Space (DOS) and Space Commission were set up under Dhawan. ISRO, established in 1969, was brought under the DOS on June 1, 1972. Till Dhawan formally joined, Indira Gandhi got MGK Menon to chair ISRO.
In a letter to Menon, Indira, in a first, articulated the need to link the space programme with defence needs. Ramesh’s book records the importance of that letter: “India’s space programme, unlike that of the US, USSR… did not emerge from the military. It was meant to fulfil developmental needs. Dhawan himself was particularly allergic to any military dimension. But clearly Haksar knew that down the road there would have to be strategic content too.”
That moment signalled the political will to lend a fresh, strategic depth to the national space programme. The rest — including Chandrayaan 3’s success — is history.
Mission’s doyens
- In 1961, at the urging of then Atomic Energy Commission chairman Homi Bhabha, space science was first identified as key area for research
- Vikram Sarabhai-led centre was next selected to house and nurture space science
- After Sarabhai’s sudden demise, Satish Dhawan was given the charge to head India’s space programme
