NISAR is a splendid example of space collaboration

While this mission was commercially arranged, the activities and experiments that Shukla conducted will aid India in its Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme in the coming years. 

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Gaganyaan 1 and 2 are expected to place unmanned crafts in low-earth orbit that will be launched in late 2025 and 2026, respectively. Gaganyaan 3 is expected to launch a crewed craft later in 2026 or early 2027. Shukla himself was trained both at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Moscow and subsequently at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

Another remarkable area of collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) will come to fruition with the launch at the end of July of a jointly-developed satellite called NISAR. The acronym stands for Nasa-Isro Satellite Aperture Radar. 

The mission is organized to collect an unprecedented amount of information about our planet’s environment. It will scan nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. This will let us track the expansion and contraction of ice sheets, sea ice and glaciers, plus the deformation of its crust due to natural hazards as well as natural and man-made changes to terrestrial ecosystems. 

These measurements will be carried out by two radar systems—an L-band system and an S-band system. This dual-band system is the first of its kind in the world. The L-band system was built in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Nasa and the S-band system at the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad. JPL will additionally provide a high-rate telecom subsystem for scientific data, a solid-state recorder and a payload data subsystem. Isro will provide the satellite bus, a solid-state recorder and a payload data system, in addition to launch services and a launch vehicle. 

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The NISAR satellite, which weighs nearly 2400kg, has been moved to Sriharikota in preparation for its launch at the end of this month. It will lift off on Isro’s GSLV-F16 rocket and then be placed in a 743km sun-synchronous orbit. 

There are many exciting space missions around the world this year and the next. These span lunar spaceflight, asteroid and planetary missions, climate and earth science missions and orbital innovation (of which NISAR is an example). Nasa, JAXA, ESA, Isro and CNSA lead almost all these programmes. Today, 55 countries have signed the Artemis Accords—a set of principles guiding peaceful and transparent space exploration, especially of the Moon and Mars. At a time when countries are at loggerheads on earth, civilian space collaboration continues apace.

If you look deeper, you will find threads of countries going it alone. The most obvious example is the CNSA, particularly Tiangong, China’s space station launched in 2021. While China’s stated goal is to make it a collaborative international project, it is currently operated by China alone. Tiangong is technically the third space station, since it follows the Mir Space Station that the Soviet Union (and later Russia) had stationed in low-earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, and the ISS, which was launched nearly 25 years ago and is still operational. Surprisingly, Russia is part of the ISS and has committed to remaining so at least until 2028. China, though, has never been part of the ISS. 

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Geopolitics on Earth is beginning to shape some country collaborations in space. The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) announced by Roscosmos and CNSA in 2021 is led by Russia and China but includes several other countries like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Pakistan and South Africa. The ILRS has announced plans to power a permanent station on the Moon with a nuclear plant to be operational beginning in 2031. 

After the Soviet Union’s space programme, this is the first space mission that seems like an alternative to Western efforts. Brazil, South Korea and India operate space programmes that are not just independent, but also open to wide global collaboration. 

India’s civilian space effort has distinguished itself with its frugal missions, ability to master complex engineering feats like landing near the Moon’s south pole, and its overall success in terms of speed and design effectiveness. Missions that explore the far reaches of our solar system and beyond are better left to countries that have very large space budgets. 

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Nasa has several telescope-based missions for interstellar space and craft-based missions for Jupiter, Saturn and beyond. India has a fast-growing private space sector, but its best returns on space investment are likely to come from parts of space that are close to earth, like near-earth orbits and the Moon. 

This priority is reflected in Isro’s next few missions, be it the planned launch of large and small payloads, uncrewed and crewed missions to low-earth orbit, or its directional tilt towards an Indian Space Station by 2035. Renewed interest in this sector has brought about a new momentum and opened up exciting possibilities for Indian discoveries in space. 

P.S: “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special,” said cosmologist Stephen Hawking. 

The author is chairman, InKlude Labs. Read Narayan’s Mint columns at www.livemint.com/avisiblehand.