History Archives - AstrotalkUK

Episode 85 – Russia’s Space programme with 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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Episode 78: ISRO’s early Earth Observation Cameras with former chairman Mr Kiran Kumar

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Mr Kiran Kumar studied physics, physical engineering and electronics in educational institutions in India including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. He specialised in electro-optical imaging systems and in 1975 was recruited by Dr Yash Pal (one of a few key individuals who played a pivotal role in the early days of India’s space programme) to ISRO’s Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad.

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During the 1970’s, state of the art imaging sensor consisted of photodiodes, vidicon tubes and photomultipliers. It was these analogue devices that he started working with before moving on to modern solid state devices such as Charged Couple Devices (CCDs). He contributed to imaging systems in India’s first remote sensing satellite (Bhaskara-1) and deep space missions to the Moon (Chandrayaan-1) and Mars (Mars Orbiter Mission).

A few highlights from the interview recorded on 22 September 2018

Had considered medicine as a career but a combination of not meeting the age criteria by 22 days and National College in Bangalore initiating a new Physics Honours course in 1968, he chose Physics.
Strongly influenced by physicist and ardent rationalist Dr.H.Narasimhaiah who later became the vice-chancellor of Bangalore University
Has a clear memory of Gagarin’s spaceflight in 1961 and Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in 1969.
Graduated in 1971, the same year that Vikram Sarabhai died. He never saw or met him.
In 1975, he was working on his Mtec at the IISc when India’s first satellite, Aryabhata was launched. He worked on Bhaskara – initially known as Satellite for Earth Observation
In the mid-1970s only four metropolitan areas in India had television reception. The SITE programme illustrated the benefits of satellite communication in delivering education to small rural communities across India.
During 1995-1999 – ISRO had the highest spatial resolution imaging capability from space in the civilian domain.
Using Commercial Off the Shelf products (or parts from COTS product) is not unusual for experimental space missions.
Moving into the Chairman’s role was not onerous. Previous experience as director of an ISRO centre provided the required experience.

Although Kiran Kumar stood down from the chairman’s role in January 2018, he remains active within ISRO.

Episode 77: Satellite tracking – the early days

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Sven Grahn has been working in the space field in one way or another for over fifty years. Officially retired, he continues to work as a project leader of a student satellite at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

He is perhaps best known for his work in tracking satellites launched by the secretive Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s.In those pre-internet days, his work along with others helped to identify individual mission characteristics such as mission types, members of the crew, take off and landing times. He recorded over 1000 conversations from orbiting spacecraft as they flew over Sweden.

In this interview, he speaks about

The impact of the space race on his choice of career
His work on sounding rockets and meteorology in Sweden and beyond
Satellite tracking. What he tracked, heard and recorded using radio and tape recorders.
How he came to research and write about the satellite tracking conducted at Jodrell Bank radio telescope in England

As an 11-year-old, Sven had seen Sputnik in the sky over Sweden with his own eyes. I started by asking him how the onset of the space race had impacted his choice of career?

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Book Review: ISRO: A Personal History

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Title: ISRO: A Personal History
Publisher: Harper Collins India
Author: R. Aravamudan with Gita Aravamudan

A delightful personal account of India’s space program from the very beginning. With personal memories from an era that otherwise would be lost. This is an important historical record of events that will in a few years be lost entirely in living memory. It is a non-technical account written by an engineer. The co-author Gita Aravamudan’s, experience in journalism is no doubt a key factor in the succinct and easy to read the narrative style.

As expected it is the personal anecdotes that really make this a fascinating reading. The reference to “chase a chimaera” wonderfully captures the extraordinary goal Sarabhai had set for India of 1962. Aravamudan’s personal accounts of meetings and working with Sarabhai, Bhabha and Kalam. While at NASA Wallops, his meeting the engineers from Pakistan captures a unique moment when the two neighbours’ space programs were at a stage of capability.

Visits by the Dalia Lama, J.R.D Tata, confrontation with local fishermen and union disputes paint a richer picture of Thumba than I had not come across before. The first-hand account of travelling to Australia to purchase a fully functioning telemetry station has surprising twists and turns. The public display of a moon rock at Sriharikota caught the imagination of the local population who turned up in unexpectedly large numbers to view it.

During his time as a director at Sriharikota, he describes the administrative burden of managing the town-like scale of the centre. As the director, he was responsible for the operations of a school, hospital, shopping centre, mosque and a temple in addition to managing the space missions. The authors remain apolitical and consistent with similar books by former ISRO employees. Naturally, the author is proud of his contribution and occasionally exaggerating ISRO’s achievement (i.e. ISRO being the first agency withMars Orbiter Mission to succeed with orbiting Mars on the first attempt). I would have liked to have seen more about the exchanges between the Indian and Pakistani engineers when the met at Wallops.

Historians of the future will be indebted to Aravamudan and his wife for chronicling a unique episode in India’s journey as a space power.

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