ISRO: From bicycle to a billion dreams

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is the space agency of the government of India. Today each and every person know about ISRO because of its remarkable achievements but since its establishment, it had gone through many ups and downs and many transformations. It started its journey with small rockets of just 30-50 kg payload and now it is carrying 4000 kg of payload to outer space. Let's have a look at its incredible journey.

Establishment

India's first space organization INCOSPAR (Indian national committee for space research) was established in 1962 by our first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Vikram Sarabhai, a renowned Indian physicist and astronomer. He was the one who initiated space researches in India. Thumba equatorial rocket launching station was set up by INCOSPAR in Thiruvananthapuram for upper atmospheric research. 

On 15th of August 1969, INCOSPAR was dissolved and ISRO was established with the vision of  "harnessing space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration". With this India started its journey in space. Let's explore some of its achievements and failure.

Initial Years

INCOSPAR started its journey in a very fund deficient condition. But talent and determination always speak loud irrespective of the difficulties faced. India's first rocket was launched from a village Thumba in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on 21st of November, 1963. This rocket was only able to reach sub-orbital space and many of its components were made by NASA. However, this incident is famous as its payload was transported to the launch site by bicycle due to lack of transportation system.

pic by:-thelogicindian.com

This is the only notable achievement of INCOSPAR. Now we will have a look at some of ISRO's achievements.

Aryabhatta: India's first artificial satellite

Aryabhatta was one of the initial hits of ISRO, named after the famous 5th-century Indian astronomer. This satellite was India's first step in space. It was launched on 19th of April 1975 from a Russian rocket launch Kapustin yar. This spacecraft was designed to conduct experiments in X-ray Astronomy, agronomics and solar physics. However, this was not as successful as expected. Due to power failure in the spacecraft, all experiments were stopped after four days in orbit. On the fifth day, all signals from the spacecraft were lost. The spacecraft re-entered earth's atmosphere in 1992 due to orbital decay.

Aryabhatta satellite

It was the first step of ISRO in the long journey and a proud moment for all Indians. This historic launch was also celebrated by Reserve Bank of India and the satellite's image appeared on Indian two rupee banknote.

Rohini Satellites

Rohini was a series of 4 satellites launched by ISRO and it can be considered as the second achievement of ISRO as this was the first satellite to be placed in orbit by the Indian launch vehicle. All the four satellites were experimental satellites and were launched to learn satellite and launch vehicle technologies like tracking, remote sensing, etc.

All of four satellites were launched by Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV), but only three of them were successful.

Rohini satellite

The first satellite was Rohini Technology Payload (RTP). It was launched on 10 August 1979. It was not able to achieve its intended orbit.

Second of the series was RS-1. It was launched on 18 July 1980. RS-D1 and RS-D2, third and fourth satellite were launched in 1981 and 1983 respectively. The most successful of these was RS-D2 which had an orbital life of 7 years and took over 2500 pictures.

So, this was a glimpse of the initial years of ISRO. There is a lot more left in this journey which will be continued in our next post.