With launch of Astrosat, first space observatory, ISRO does India proud again
Watching live telecasts of satellite launches from India's spaceport, Sriharikiota, is always exciting. One can experience adrenaline rush with every passing second of the rocket piercing through the sky. And like in cricket, with every mission from Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is setting new records.
Three magnificent records were achieved by the space agency on Monday morning. The flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Monday was its 30th consecutive successful mission. Second, with this launch the number of foreign or customer satellites launched by ISRO crossed half a century mark. The number now stands at 51. The third record was that today India launched an American satellite from its soil.
No wonder, Yashpal - the adorable grand old man of the space programme and Indian science - who witnessed the launch, exclaimed "mazaa aa gaya". He beautifully summed up the feeling in the control room which included top ISRO brass but also India's leading astronomers - who were there to witness PSLV launch their baby, Astrosat - and scientists from Indonesia, Canada and the US whose satellites were also injected into space in today's mission.
Thirty consecutive successful launches of a rocket - third this year - is no mean achievement for any space agency. This feat makes PSLV a true workhorse and ISRO a commercial space agency. The secret of this success is the robust design, development and review systems the space agency has perfected over the years. Indian industry has been participating as a supplier of equipment, components, fuel etc for different missions. "It is not by chance that we have reached this landmark. ISRO treats every mission as its first mission", Kunhi Krishnan, director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
The objective of today's mission was to launch Astrosat - a dedicated satellite for astronomical observations - and six foreign satellites (one Indonesian, one Canadian and four nano satellites of American company, Spire Global).
Astrosat is a space-based observatory designed to collect data that can contribute to better understanding of the universe. Most of its payloads have been designed and developed outside ISRO- by Indian astronomers from leading centres such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). One of its unique features is that it will enable gathering of astronomical data in different wavelengths (optical, ultraviolet, low and high energy X-ray) simultaneously. This is big deal for space observatories because most such missions have been designed for one or two wavelengths.
The scientific objectives of this observatory include understanding high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes, estimating magnetic fields of neutron stars, studying star birth regions and high energy processes in star systems lying beyond our galaxy and performing a limited deep field survey of the universe in the Ultraviolet region. Astrosat is supposed to supplement ground-based astronomical observations. The payloads were in the making for close to a decade as it was a technically challenging task to design the satellite and payloads for a different kind of mission.
Space-based astronomical observations are important because all celestial objects can't be seen and tracked from ground-based observatories. Celestial objects can be detected from signals of various gases they emit. These signals either become faint or can't be detected due to the earth's atmosphere. Therefore, initially scientists used balloons or observatories located at high altitudes for their studies. Space telescopes like Hubble and Chandra launched by NASA changed all this. Astrosat is not in the same category as these telescopes, but is certainly a significant addition to the world of astronomy and will boost astronomy in India. This will also encourage other scientific groups to work with ISRO in designing such scientific missions in future.