50 years ago, India’s first satellite Aryabhata launched: A milestone in space exploration – The Tribune-OxBig News Network

It was in the spring, exactly half a century ago, that India launched its first satellite, Aryabhata, through the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This achievement propelled the country into an elite space club, and India has made significant progress since then. From its humble beginnings, riding piggyback on a foreign power, ISRO’s space exploration and satellite development odyssey has grown exponentially, setting several records and providing launch facilities to other nations.

Named after India’s famous 5th-century mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata, the spacecraft was the country’s first indigenously built satellite. Constructed by a group of young scientists in just 30 months, it cemented the foundation of India’s satellite development programme. According to ISRO’s website, the 360-kg scientific experimental satellite was designed for a mission life of six months, with the spacecraft mainframe active until March 1981. It had an orbital life of nearly 17 years, re-entering the atmosphere on February 10, 1992.

Aryabhata was launched into space on April 17, 1975, on board a Soviet-era C-1 Intercosmos launch vehicle from Kapustin Yar, a military training area and rocket launch complex about 100 km east of Volgograd in Russia. The satellite was placed in an orbit 563 x 619 km above the Earth, with an orbit time of 96 minutes and 46 seconds. It was designed to conduct experiments in X-ray astronomy, aeronomics (the study of the upper atmosphere), and solar physics. However, a power failure halted experiments after four days and 60 orbits, with all signals from the satellite lost after five days of operation, although it continued circling the Earth until its orbital decay in 1992.

India had been making successful forays into space since 1963 with the launch of Rohini sounding rockets and began exploring the satellite arena. In 1971, India’s ambassador to the erstwhile Soviet Union, DP Dhar, conveyed to the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, that Moscow was open to collaborating with India on space exploration. The matter moved forward swiftly, with subsequent meetings between Indian and Soviet experts. In May 1972, a historic Indo-Soviet agreement was signed, laying out the groundwork for the launch of an Indian satellite from a Soviet cosmodrome.

A centre to build the satellite was established at Peenya in Bengaluru, with four large industrial sheds acquired by ISRO and converted into laboratories, clean rooms, fabricating centres, and test facilities. Most of these facilities were set up for the first time in India. With Dr UR Rao, known as India’s satellite man and later chairman of ISRO, as the project director, the team grew to about 200 engineers, scientists, and technicians. Special sanctions were accorded to procure the required equipment and materials from overseas, and the project was budgeted at about Rs 3 crore.

Intensive work was undertaken over the next 30 months, finalising designs, developing prototypes, and evaluating their performance and integrity. A host of simulations, thermo-vacuum chamber, vibration, and shock tests, communication link checks, and telemetry trials were conducted under various conditions. By early 1975, the fabrication, integration, and testing of the flight model were completed. Alongside, other ground-based support and tracking facilities, such as telemetry and communication units, were set up.

Although all three scientific experiments on-board Aryabhata had to be called off due to power failure, other technological experiments were performed based on the use of on-board telecommand, utilising the transmitter-receiver for data transmission from one station to another using the satellite as a node. Aryabhata may not have been a complete success, but it made a significant statement on the global front and provided an important psychological boost for the nation. It gave an impetus to ISRO, which has since built 130 satellites, out of which 51 are in orbit, rendering crucial services to the nation in communication, surveillance, scientific research, resource exploration, land mapping, and meteorological realms.

The pioneering spacecraft’s image was also imprinted on the reverse of Indian currency notes of Rs 2 denomination issued between 1976 and 1997 and featured, along with two other Indian satellites, on a postal stamp issued by the USSR in 1984 to commemorate Indo-Soviet space collaboration.