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Episode 85 – Russia’s Space programme with Brian Harvey

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Brian Harvey

Brian Harvey is a Dublin based writer who has authored more than 14 books on space. His books have covered the space programmes of USSR/Russia, USA, India, Japan and China. He has a deep understanding of the motivations and politics as well as the space technology that has emerged since the space age. In this episode, we speak about Russia/USSR’s space programme what it was at the outset and its status today.

Some of the topics we discuss include

  • Russian rocket engines still the best in the world.
  • The first factory to build rocket engines for spacecraft was established in Leningrad in 1927.
  • Age profile in Russian space programme – not enough younger people. Compared to the programme in China which is largely less than 40.
  • In 1935 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky invited as a guest of honour at the mayday speech “I believe the first person in space is alive today”. This was in 1935 when Yuri Gagarin was one year old.
  • There were several reasons for the failure for the USSR not get a crewed mission to the Moon. The main one was the lack of programme management.
  • With 39 launches in 2018, China was the leader. Until a few years ago Russia was the world leader of launches. Russia’s planned 45 launches in 2019 is not realistic.
  • China, India and Japan were on par about a decade ago but China has now emerged with a “superpower” status. India has made progress in the number of annual launches, science missions and recently announced its plans to initiate a human space program.
    We discussed the movie Salyut 7 the movie. This is the space station that Rakesh Sharma had visited in 1984.
    Russia space programme, minimal new investment, an ageing workforce, reliability and quality control on a decline.

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Full steam ahead for ISRO after a successful GSLV-MK3 launch

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  • Credit: ISRO

On Wednesday 14th November 2018, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed a 3.4-ton communication satellite GSAT-29 in orbit with the third launch (and the second developmental flight) of its heavy launch vehicle – GSLV-Mk3. This is a huge milestone for ISRO. 

This mission was critical for ISRO. Had it not been successful the impact would have had profound on it is immediate and near-term plans. In addition to taking a huge financial hit and loss of morale within the organisation, there would have been additional consequences.

  • ISRO has been building and launching satellites for almost 3 decades. But operational launchers  (PSLV and GSLV-MK2) do not have the capacity to launch heavy (more than 2.5 tons)  satellites. So has outsourced those launches to the European Space Agency’s  Ariane launcher. The successful launch of GSLV-Mk3 D2 mission means that India need not continue to rely on EAS’s Araian.
  • A mission review earlier this year increased the mass of  ISRO’s  Lunar Lander mission Chandrayaan-2. The increased mass is beyond the capacity of a PSLV or a GSLV MK2. The Chandrayaan-2 mission is scheduled for launch in January next year. Without this success, this key mission to the Moon would have been delayed indefinitely.
  • Another casualty could have been the 2022 timeline for the recently announced Human Spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan. In August, India’s Prime Minister announced India to launch a crewed spaceflight from India by 2022.

As a result of this mission, the GSLV MK3 will move from development (with D prefix) to an operational phase (with a C for continuous prefix)  from 2019. 

Geosynchronous Satellite (GSAT-29)  is a communication satellite that will provide high-resolution imagery, radio and digital communication for northern parts of India. Designed to operate for 10 years, the ISRO chairman announced that the launch was so precise, the extra fuel will extend the satellites lifetime to at least 12 years. In the near future, GSAT-29 will be joined by two more similar satellites to support the “Digital India” programme. A more detailed report of GSLV-Mk3-D@ mission from William Graham on Nasaspacflight.com

  • Credit: ISRO
  • Credit: ISRO
  • Credit: ISRO
  • Credit: ISRO
  • Credit: ISRO

If you missed the live stream of the pre-launch, launch and post-launch commentary – its here (all 90 minutes) on youtube.

Credit: ISRO

New audio -Rakesh Sharma in Space speaking Russian 7th April 1984

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  • Soyuz T11 Crew

Recently two audio clips (see below) of Sharma’s broadcast have emerged. They were recorded in 1984 by Sven Grahn in Sweden. The audio clips are part of a TV broadcast transmitted on 7th April and captured over two orbits. The first clip Sharma talks about the Yoga experiments and in the second, we hear him for the first time speaking in Russian about the pictures of Indian leaders he took with him to space. He mentions the defence minister because Rakesh Sharma was a member of the Indian Airforce and had no connections with ISRO. The audio was originally recorded live by Sven Grahn and transcribed from Russian to English by Bart Hendrikx. Transcription and the audio clips below. My thanks to them both.

In 1984, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian national and the 138th person to enter space. His trip into space was part of the USSR’s Interkosmos programme. During this programme, 14 non-Soviet cosmonauts travelled to the USSR’s Soyuz space station in low earth orbit stations between 1978 and 1988.

On  Tuesday, 3 April 1984, at 10:38, Rakesh Sharma with Commander Yuri Malyshev and Gennady Strekalov blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft. Ten minutes later, Soyuz T-11 was in a 224 kilometre LEO on its way to dock with the space station Salyut 7. After just over a week on Wednesday 11th April Sharma returned to Earth aboard Soyuz T-10 as planned to the USSR 46 km to the east of the city of Arkalyk.

During his 8 days, Sharma conducted several observations, experiments and participated in live TV broadcasts. His first broadcast and conversation with the Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi took place on the 4th April and is well documented.

Sven Grahn and his equipment in 1974. Credit Sven Grahn.


Audio recorded in Real-time by Sven Grahn

14:45–14:50 UT 7/4/1984

Yuri Malyshev: (in Russian)

… in order not to spoil the experiment…
Yesterday, while we were flying over our country and doing experiments with our film cameras, I asked Rakesh to come to the window and look at the beautiful Kuril Islands, the volcanoes. As far as my native region is concerned, I would gladly invite Rakesh to the Volga region where I was born and to the Dnepr region where I grew up and would show him these two mighty and beautiful rivers … (inaudible)

Rakesh Sharma: (in English)

In order to conserve muscle tone as well as (inaudible). As everyone know this is due to the lack of gravity and tends to expand a bit. So for these exercises we have selected 5 (in audible) and other warming up exercises padma asana, and again we will go back and get some more readings which will then be compared before flight and after flight and then we will know. And no I have not done yoga before coming [to this] programme but that again makes me a better subject because there is no preconditioning involved. When I reached here it was without the help of yoga and I did yoga only here and therefore the results will be more interpretable.

16:20-16:24 UT 7/4/1984

Yuri Malyshev: (in Russian)

… television viewers in India and the Soviet Union. In this television report we want to talk about… (inaudible)

We have brought with us to the station pennants and flags of the Soviet Union and India, coats of arms, commemorative medals, envelopes. We are now showing you pennants made on the occasion of the joint Soviet-Indian spaceflight, diplomas. Right next to us is a medal of Gagarin made on the occasion of the 50th birth anniversary of Gagarin and awarded to the crew of the Salyut-7/Soyuz orbital complex, cosmonauts Kizim, Solovyov and Atkov. We have also brought with us symbolic items from India about which Rakesh Sharma will tell you more.

Rakesh Sharma: (in Russian)

As Yuri Malyshev already told you, these are portraits of our leaders : Mahatma Gandhi, who we call the father of the homeland, did a lot to fight colonialism, Jawaharlal Nehru, the father of Indira Gandhi, our president Zail Singh, our prime minister Indira Gandhi, who is well known, and our Defence Minister Ramaswamy Venkataraman. We have also brought the coat of arms of our Air Force, the coat of arms…. (inaudible)

Quick Update

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Scheduled EpisodesIts been a while since I posted episode 72.  Now that the book The Indian Space Programme has been published, I am resuming the podcasting. You can see some Amazon Reviews and if you have one, add your own too. More about that book on this short BBC radio interview here.

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If you want you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter. The previous newsletter (March 2018) available here. April’s newsletter coming out tomorrow!

Scheduled episodes currently looks like this

  • Episode 73. Dr. Rajan Bedi – Using Commercial Of the Shelf (COTs) Components to build spacecraft (1st May 2018)
  • Episode 74. Dr Brian Weeden –  Space Debris and Sustainable use of Space (18th May 2018)
  • Episode 75. Dr Quan-Zhi Ye.  China – Back to the Moon with Chang’e 4 (1 June 2018)