Didn’t sleep whole night till Sunita returned to earth: ISRO Chairman
“I did not sleep that day, watching the entire mission” said the Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Dr V Narayanan, today while speaking on the nail-biting events culminating in the return of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore homecoming to earth on March 18, after nine months of being stranded aboard the International Space Station.
Dr Narayanan shared this while speaking on the sidelines of the 8th Chhatra Sansad hosted at Lovely Professional University, where he was one of the key speakers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently penned an emotional letter, also extending an invitation to the “illustrious daughter” (Sunita) to come to India following her return. ISRO, too, closely followed her return, with the chairman having expressed the wish to “utilise” her “expertise in space exploration”.
The ISRO Chairman also said with recent developments and projects in space exploration, India had several firsts to its credit - India being first country to find water molecule on the moon through the Chandrayaan mission, the first country to land on moon’s south pole, first country to accomplish red planet mission on the first attempt and at a very low cost, the first country to place over 100 satellites by a single rocket, etc. Speaking on the upcoming Gaganyaan mission to space, he said it will facilitate new era in space-related understanding and experience for India.
Responding to The Tribune’s query on the dramatic events leading to Sunita’s and Wilmore dramatic splash down on the Gulf of Mexico on March 18, Narayanan said, “This was a highly technology-intense mission. They faced problems, earlier with the thrusters, then they wanted to do a test on the ground and after testing also they were not convinced. Then they changed the recent models and when they changed the model, there was the issue with the space suits and they took time. Now they’ve come back.”
Narayanan said, “I did not sleep that day, fully following the episode and understanding it. In all, it was a fantastic feeling. We have to learn from others and our own missions will be aided by it.”
Responding to queries whether there had been a response so far (on the invitation from India), Narayanan said, “The Prime Minister has extended the invitation. So it is the political leadership which will follow up on that.”
Speaking on the upcoming Gaganyaan Space Mission – which is pegged as India’s next big space project aimed to demonstrate India’s indigenous capability to undertake human space flight missions, Narayanan said, “This is a mission in which we are going to send our astronauts to the space station. So that they will gain some experience, exposure, understanding, talking to others, experiences in conducting experiments. And also the confidence level will go up. This is being undertaken as per the fantastic decision taken by the Prime Minister.”
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Where we stand now
On a couple of issues, we’re on number one. With the Chandrayaan Mission, India became the first country to find water molecule on the moon; with Chandrayaan 3, India became the only country to land on the south pole of the moon. With Chandrayaan 2 – we landed an orbiter in lunar orbit, sending thousands of photographs with the best camera available on the moon. India is the only country which accomplished mars mission in the first attempt (that too with a very low cost). In a single rocket, Russia placed 30 satellites, subsequently we are the first country which placed more than 100 satellites by a single rocket.
ISRO’s birth in 1969
The Indian Space Programme was started in 1962 and the ISRO was opened on August 15, 1969. At that time, we were almost 60 years behind advanced nations in space activities because in 1969, Neil Armstrong landed on moon and Yuri Gagarin was sent into space and brought back safely in 1961. Till today, we’ve launched 4,000 rockets.
131 satellites launched so far
We placed our first satellite into space in 1975. Since then, 131 satellites have been built and launched. Right now, 55 satellites are in orbit serving the common man in multiple ways – telecommunications, tele-education, web casting, tele-medicine, meteorology, resource management, navigation applications like real time monitoring of boats and vessels etc.
