India's Space Vision 2047
Pursuing a Phenomenal Dream
Dr. B. R. Guruprasad
The six-decade old Indian space programme has seen major changes as well as outstanding successes in the recent past. Once planned and implemented in the state sector, the government's decision in 2020 to invite the private sector to significantly participate in India's space programme was a paradigm shift indeed.
New Initiatives
This policy decision of the government was strongly influenced by the need to utilise the country's potential to the fullest possible extent to offer valuable space-based services, both domestically as well as globally. The subsequent publication of India's Space Policy Document in 2023 clearly delineating the role of Indian Space Research Organisation, the private sector, the newly created commercial arm of DOS called New Space India Limited (NSIL) and hand holding and regulatory body IN-SPACe, further emphasised the seriousness of the government to bring in private sector to contribute meaningfully to India's space capabilities for significantly enhancing India's share in the global space economy.
Significant Successes
The government's confidence in India's space capabilities as well as the potential is affirmed by ISRO's recent notable successes in space exploration domain that caught the attention of not only our countrymen but the global community as well. More importantly, it has enabled the government to envision a far more capable and robust space ecosystem for the country by 2047.
On July 14, 2023 India's most powerful launch vehicle LVM3, which had earlier successfully placed 72 satellites for the UK based global communication satellite services provider OneWeb, flawlessly launched the 3900 kg Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into a preliminary orbit around the Earth.
About two weeks later, India's workhorse PSLV launcher placed seven Singapore satellites in the required orbit. But these successes were outshined on August 23, 2023, with the gentle and perfect touchdown of Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 in the South Polar region of the Moon. This was historic indeed, making India the first country to land in that difficult region. This event glaringly revealed India's space prowess.
To top it off, about a week later, India's trusted workhorse launch vehicle PSLV triumphed again and placed Aditya-L1 spacecraft in the intended preliminary orbit around the earth. Later, PSLV achieved success again by launching India's X-ray polarimetry satellite XPOSAT on January 1, 2024.
A few days later, Aditya-L1, carefully navigated by ISRO scientists, reached a so called 'halo orbit' around L1 Lagrangian Point. This is the final destination of Aditya-L1 lying at a distance of about 1.5 million (fifteen lakh) kilometers from the earth. Thus, Aditya acquired the ability to conduct round the clock solar observation.
Envisioning a Giant Leap
These successes further encouraged the government to develop a vision about a far more robust Indian space sector for the future by pursuing the highly challenging human spaceflight pro-gramme ‘Gaganyaan’ with more intensive effort leading to a space station by the end of this decade, human landing on the Moon by India in 2040 and a base on the Moon by 2047. Thus, what is termed as India's 'Space Vision 2047' is a reflection of the government's awareness about its growing space prowess and is in line with the government's vision and aspiration to transform the country into an economy with a tenfold increase in GDP and a global hub of innovation and a thriving digital technology by 2047.
The signing of Artemis Accords by India in 2023 can be viewed as a crucial step towards realising the human lunar exploration dream. The NASA-led Artemis programme intends to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon through renewed lunar exploration and in-situ utilisation of lunar resources. The propounders of Artemis believe that the Moon can act as valuable training ground and refuelling point for human explorers proceeding towards Mars and beyond.
India's Space Capabilities
India has the end-to-end capability to design, develop, build, test, launch and keep satellites under control as well as to utilise them. This has been painstakingly developed over a period of five decades amidst formidable challenges and testing circumstances. The satellites built in and launched from India are playing a vital role in the smooth functioning of our economy as well as ensuring the comprehensive security of our country.
In the 1990s, India began providing satellite-based services using its IRS and INSAT satellites as well as launch services using PSLV to the global community. And in the first decade of the millennium, India confidently built and launched Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to explore the Moon.
By accommodating a total of six more scientific instruments from NASA, European Space Agency and Bulgaria in Chandrayaan-1 besides its five scientific instruments, ISRO exercised leadership role in its maiden mission to explore another heavenly body. And, one of them made a pathbreaking discovery of conclusively detecting water on the Moon for the first time.
Besides, a box like gadget called MIP that weighed about 37 kg at launch detached from Chandrayaan-1 as the latter orbited the Moon and a little later, MIP hit the lunar surface thereby making India only the fourth individual country to reach the lunar surface.
Buoyed by the success of Chandrayaan-1, ISRO planned and went ahead with Chandrayaan-2 mission amidst a string of challenges. Having acquired rich experience in orbiting a spacecraft around the Moon and in making a probe to 'hard land (hit)' the lunar surface during Chandrayaan 1, the next logical step, Chandrayaan-2, was built to make a 'soft landing (gentle touchdown)' on the lunar surface.
Road to Success
Unfortunately, Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander could not accomplish that arduous task though it was working fine till when it was just about 2 km from the Moon's surface. Space is an unforgiving domain indeed with the dividing line between success and failure is extremely thin. This has become glaringly apparent in the past one year as spacecraft missions to Moon from Russia, US and Japan have completely or partially failed at different stages.
Though lunar soft landing could not be accomplished with Chandrayaan-2, the orbital module of that spacecraft equipped with eight Indigenous payloads (scientific instruments), has performed an astounding job by sending abundant information that includes images from cameras, radar and spectrometers that vividly detail various interesting aspects of the Moon.
Chandrayaan-3: Phenomenal Achievement
What could not be accomplished in Chandrayaan-2 was spectacularly achieved by Chandrayaan-3 through the perseverant effort of ISRO as the world watched it live. After making a pioneering soft landing in the South Polar region of the Moon, India also demonstrated its technological ability to make a rover (Pragyaan, a wheeled robotic vehicle) to move freely in the vicinity of the landing site. Besides, through in situ exploration of the Moon from Vikram lander as well as the mobile Pragyaan rover, India demons-trated its ability to skilfully collect scientific data from the lunar surface.
Furthermore, the Vikram lander underwent a 'hop test' when it successfully lifted off from the lunar surface, rose a little bit, moved horizontally and again landed. This was performed to test the ability of a spacecraft to begin the first phase of its return journey to earth. With ISRO contemplating Chandrayaan-4 lunar soil and rock sample return mission and aspiring to land humans on the Moon by 2040, this was a little, yet important, success indeed.
It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-3 consisted of a propulsion module, Vikram lander mounted on top of it and Pragyaan rover safely cocooned inside the belly of Vikram. And it was the propulsion module that carried Vikram to Lunar orbit and later Vikram leading an independent life there before landing.
As Vikram and Pragyaan successfully reached the Lunar surface, the propulsion module of Chandrayaan-3 remained in Lunar orbit and began observing the distant earth. In yet another pioneering feat, ISRO has successfully brought propulsion module back from Lunar orbit to Earth orbit. This also augurs well for the future Chandrayaan-4 as well as the vision to land humans on the Moon by 2040 and bring them back safely.
Undoubtedly, success of Chandrayaan-3 is a key factor that positively influenced the government in the formulation of India's Space Vision 2047. And subsequent successes of ISRO also contributed to it to varying extent.
Foray into Human Spaceflight Domain
With its vast experience in uncrewed spaceflight domain including lunar exploration, India has now boldly embarked on human spaceflight mission, the maiden step of which is Gaganyaan. This envisages the sending of Indian space travellers in an Indian built spacecraft onboard an Indian rocket vehicle launched from the Indian soil.
Much before the governmental approval was accorded for Gaganyaan in 2018, many enabling technologies were developed, especially related to the re-entry and recovery of a human carrying spacecraft. In the post approval phase, ISRO has accelerated its efforts to realise Gaganyaan as early as possible, but firmly keeping a vigilant eye on the safety of Gaganyaan space travellers (sometimes popularly referred to as gaganauts or vyomanauts).
Gaganyaan is being endeavoured in India as a national mission with many national research establishments, academia and industry joining hands with ISRO in this challenging task that can become the next giant leap for India, technologically. It is expected that the valuable experience gained through Chandrayaan and Gaganyaan programmes should lead towards the establishment of an Indian Space Station in Earth’s orbit by the end of the decade and much later, India's human landing on the Moon in 2040 and establishment of the country's base on the Moon by 2047.
Perseverant Efforts
As part of Gaganyaan, ISRO is now 'human rating' (making it highly reliable and safer for humans to travel) LVM3, which is the most capable of its launch vehicles, to carry Gaganyaan spacecraft into an earth orbit of about 400 km. The Gaganyaan is a 8 tonne spacecraft capable of accommodating three humans and can remain in earth orbit for about a week and bring them back safely.
The spacecraft is also in quite an advanced stage of development with its environment and life-support system being given utmost attention, since these provide the comfortable ambience and safety to Indian space travellers to live in the weightless environment of space.
Besides, 'abort tests' have been successfully conducted to test our ability to quickly terminate the Gaganyaan spacecraft's ascent into space and to ensure the safety of the astronauts either on the launch pad itself or when the rocket vehicle carrying spacecraft is speeding towards space. This is to manage any emergency during the spacecraft's ascent to orbit.
Selection of 'Gaganauts'
Equally important and more conspicuous is the selection of four IAF test pilots - Group Captains Prashant Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla - as the first Gaganyaan astronaut candidates. Yet another significant development in this regard is the recent selection of Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla, the youngest amongst the four, as the man to fly to the largely US led International Space Station in early 2025 onboard an American rocket before the first crewed launch of Gaganyaan. This signifies the close co-operation of India and the United States in space sector and the valuable experience it offers to India in the human spaceflight domain.
Advantage of Artemis Accords
Here it is pertinent to recall that the US is endeavouring to return to Moon through its Artemis programme with the participation of like-minded countries. Sensing the advantages it offers, India signed the Artemis Accords in 2023. With its demonstrated capabilities in lunar exploration, India can benefit in many ways by participating in Artemis programme to carefully and effectively leverage its space capabilities. This will definitely be helpful for India’s plan to land Indian space travellers on the Moon by 2040 and establish a lunar base by 2047 when the country will be celebrating the centenary of its independence.
Thus, the burgeoning Indian space programme is gearing itself up towards the realisation of 'Space Vision 2047' through a series of logical and incrementally challenging steps. Beginning with the continued robotic exploration of the Moon including a sample return mission in the late 2020s and then searching and quantifying the presence of water in the lunar polar region jointly with Japan through LUPEX mission, the subsequent Chandrayaan missions will proceed further to test the technologies and techniques essential for more focused and sustained human exploration of the Moon.
Transforming Vision to Mission
Along with these, India's maiden human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan will serve as the stepping stone to human space exploration programme of the country in Earth orbit, leading to the beginning of the establishment of a Bharatiya Antariksh Station (Indian Space Station) around the end of this decade. As per the current visualisation, this will enable the country to move towards the targeted human lunar landing by India by 2040 after which it is planned to further progress towards the establishment of an Indian lunar base by 2047, thereby realising the 'Space Vision 2047' as the country achieves a more significant political, economic and technological status thereby making more than a billion Indians proud of their ancient heritage and contemporary capabilities.
The challenges of realising this vision are myriad. Dedication and perseverance are the paths to realise this great dream. The country has to carefully forge ahead with single minded devotion to achieve such greater heights in the domain of space.
Career Opportunities in the Indian Space Ecosystem
Being one of a handful of major spacefaring nations with a vibrant space programme, our country has provided many opportunities for educated Indians to serve its space programme in various capacities. About 19,000 people work in various establishments of the Department of Space (DOS), including ISRO. Besides, probably many thousands work in private sector which has provided many services to ISRO including parts and components for Indian satellites and launch vehicles in the past five decades. This sector began playing a more active role before the announcement of reforms by the Government in 2020. After these reforms, space startups have mushroomed and career opportunities got enhanced for aspirants with technical background.
DOS establishments like ISRO provide career opportunities in both technical and non-technical areas. Opportunities are more for aspirants with a background in different Engineering disciplines with a minimum of a Bachelor's Degree. Possession of a Master's Degree or a Doctoral Degree will definitely have more advantages both from recruitment and career progression points of view. Post Graduates in possession of a Master's Degree in Science and Mathematics or a Ph.D in those subjects will also find opportunities to join Indian space programme, but their opportunities are relatively limited. Similarly, there are limited opportunities for people with industrial training, diploma and bachelor's degree in science to be recruited as assistants and technicians.
In the non-technical or administrative area, people with a minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in Arts, Commerce and allied disciplines will have the opportunity to be recruited as Officers as well as Assistants and those with such degrees and secretarial qualification will have the opportunity to be recruited as Junior Personnel Assistants or Stenographers.
Irrespective of the grade, opportunity to work in the Indian Space sector has enough thrill and excitement.
(The author is a Science Writer and Broadcaster, Public Relations Professional. He is presently working as Director, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru. He was Former ISRO Scientist / Former Associate Director (PR), ISRO, Adjunct Faculty, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. Feedback on this article can be sent to feedback.employmentnews@gmail.com) Views expressed are personal.