Was planning to write a long note on the inflated hue and cry over India’s space program. This is a summary of my views without going into the details.
Of late, every successful event of the Indian space programme is celebrated as if it is a ‘historic’ one. An impression is given as if the whole program is merely a few years old and all that it has achieved has been in a short period of a few years. To be more specific, unlike in the case of the missions of countries like the USA, when Indian media reports on the Indian missions readers do not get any idea as to when the mission was planned and what kind of effort has gone into it.
Just like the Mars Mission launched towards the end of 2013, the various satellite launches are the result of many years of planning to ensure that India has a series of satellites of different capabilities and there are replacements as old satellites are retired. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission that was placed into an orbit around Mars in September 2014 was lauded as the world’s cheapest Mars mission by both domestic and foreign media. The recent launch of 104 satellites was, indeed, technically a record. The Indian media played it up as an Earth-shaking event. And, now the routine launch of GSAT-9 (South Asia Satellite), which is primarily a communications satellite, using GSLV-F09 - a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, has been described as a triumph of India's “space diplomacy”.
Let us very briefly look at the three cases:
- World’s ‘cheapest’ Mars Mission, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) alias Mangalyaan launched on 5-Nov-2013 and placed in a Mars orbit on 24-Sep- 2014
- Launch of a record 104 satellites by India’s PSLV-C37 rocket on 15-Feb-2017 and
- The GSAT-9 (South Asia Satellite) on 5-May-2017
The MOM is an outstanding achievement for ISRO. Nevertheless, it is misleading to discuss it as the world’s cheapest ‘Mars Mission’ as many have. There are many difficulties in a cost comparison. A crude way to illustrate this is to make a cost comparison between a ‘cheap’ basic cell phone and a costly high-end smartphone. Both can make the same kind of phone calls but vary greatly in functionality and cost.
The MOM has limited capabilities compared to the US Mars Mission under NASA, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN). MOM is supposed to cost $74m compared to $671m for MAVEN. Taking capabilities of MOM as the base, it will not be an exaggeration to say that MAVEN is pretty cost-effective! The human resource and establishment costs in India may be comparatively low. That apart, it is not clear how project costs are estimated for the two cases. The space programmes pursued by NASA are far more complex and it is not proper to compare even the salaries for what may seem to be equivalent designations in India and the US. The research and development facilities too are poles apart.
Back of the envelope calculations used in most media reports for comparison are absurd. With the kind of technologies, sensors and functionalities used in these missions, there are no sound methods to compare the two missions or their costs. Using cost per unit weight or even kilometre as some have tried to do are completely meaningless. For example, the Indian Prime Minister made a strange comparison of the cost per kilometre of MOM to the auto-rickshaw tariff in Ahmedabad, to press home a bizarre argument that MOM is much cheaper!
There are not only unique capabilities but also many other aspects of the functioning of a spacecraft such as its lifespan, communication systems, the sensitivity of sensors, cameras, quality of signals, etc. While the MOM has very few sensors, it carries a few that are not present in MAVEN, though the sensitivity is not very high. Those are supposed to complement in some ways the sensors in MAVEN. The 38th consecutively successful mission of the Indian rocket PSLV, launched on 15-Feb-2017, carried 104 satellites, which is a world record as far as the total number of satellites successfully placed in orbit by a rocket. With this, the total number of customer satellites launched by all the PSLV launch vehicles so far adds up to 180. The total weight of all the 104 satellites carried onboard PSLV-C37 was 1378 kg. The 104 satellites included three Indian satellites and the remaining 101 co-passenger satellites were international customer satellites from USA (96), The Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1), Israel (1), Kazakhstan (1) and UAE (1).
Of the 104, India’s Cartosat-2 Series Satellite weighing 714 kg is the primary payload. All the others are secondary payloads. Two are technology demonstration nano-satellites of ISRO (INS-1 and INS-2 weighing 8.4 kg and 9.7 kg). The weight of the other 101 satellites ranges from about one to seven kilogrammes. Among these are 88 nano-satellites belonging to Planet Inc., a private firm based in the US. The technologies have changed so much that role of ISRO’s rocket PSLV is limited to releasing the individual satellite or a rack containing multiple satellites at a designated spot in space, almost like dropping a basket full of tiny satellites. After that, the satellites will be on their own and will configure themselves into a preset ‘constellation’ without any support from the Indian rocket. The GSAT-9 launched on 5-May-2017, now called as the South Asia Satellite, is a regular broadcasting and telecommunications spacecraft with 12 high-powered Ku-band transponders. The satellite costing nearly $36.2 million was originally planned to be launched on a GSLV MK-II rocket in 2015 or 2016, but was delayed to May 2017. India has offered one transponder to each of the seven SAARC countries other than India. It is described with considerable hype as the biggest move India has made using ‘space diplomacy’. While Pakistan has opted out, most SAARC nations have not signed up. Only Bhutan and Maldives seem to have formally accepted the ‘offer’.
The name was changed from SAARC Satellite to South Asia Satellite after Pakistan raised objections and refused to accept it as a SAARC initiative. What was otherwise another in the GSAT series of Indian communications satellites was supposed to be called as ‘SAARC Satellite’ after the Indian Prime Minister made an announcement in 2014 that India will offer it to promote regional cooperation. It was a unilateral announcement. It was a gesture showing India as a very generous big brother.
The Indian offer is more like the ‘free offers’ from some of the large telecom companies (e.g., Reliance Jio), which customers tend to distrust, than one that promotes sincere regional cooperation. Almost all SAARC countries have existing commercial arrangements with satellite providers or collaborative ventures with China to meet their needs. India may call it a “gift to the SAARC region.” However, it is difficult to see how free offers like this can overcome the trust deficit India’s neighbours now have. It is more so when highly unequal terms are inherent in such offers, which does not provide scope for either collaborative work or have the features of a commercial contract.
There is nothing in these three programmes that make them stand out, except for the Mars Orbiter Mission launched on 5-Nov-2013. The fact that India was able to register a success with MOM earns her some laurels even if its capabilities are quite limited. When it comes to satellite launch capabilities, cross-subsidising the domestic needs with commercialisation does make sense. That is not new, but an option ISRO has successfully used for many years. India leveraging its prowess in space program appears more like asserting a big brotherly role in the region than one fostering genuine regional cooperation.
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