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Episode 91 – ISRO and the Spy who was not

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Nambi Narayan

One of the most fascinating and colourful characters associated with the Indian Space Programme is Narayan Nambi.

In 1994, Nambi Narayanan an ISRO aerospace engineer was falsely arrested by the Investigation Beuro on charges of espionage. He was accused of passing on confidential launch vehicle flight test data to foreign nationals. In 1996 he was cleared by the Central Investigations Bureau and India’s Supreme Court found him not guilty in 1998. In 2019 he was presented with India’s third-highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.

In 1966 he joined ISRO or INCOSPAR as it was known at that time. With the guidance and support of Vikram Sarabhai, he went to study liquid and cryogenic engine technology at Princeton in 1969. He worked on the early stages of the development of the Vikas liquid engine which now powers two of the four stages of the PSLV.

Some of the topics we discussed include:

  • During the 1960s he visited the Spadadam site near Carlisle. Today it is a Royal Airforce Station but in the 1960s it was the site used by the British Government test rocket engines and to develop Blue Streak – an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile.
  • In 1974 ISRO concluded a barter arrangement – no money changed hands. India would provide 100 man-years trained engineers. 75% of this time would towards supporting France developing their (then new)  Ariane 1 launcher and 25% would be used by India to develop the Vikas Engine with the technology transfer from France. Indian engineers would also build, test and qualify 100,000 pressure transducers for France.
  • He claims to be the architect of this unique barter arrangement. In addition to being the father and architect of the PSLV.
  • He suspects that the intelligence Beuro picked on him to slow down the Cryogenic engine development and remove him as project director.
  • Speculating on the why the Vikram lander failed to make a soft landing he thinks it may have been related to the automatic landing sequence (software) or an issue with the braking thrusters.
    He is an advocate of an Asian Space Agency lead by India.
    He believes China space programme is not ahead of India’s because India has succeeded with the Mars Orbiter Mission.
    He would like India and China to increase collaboration in space.
    In 2017, he published a book on his experiences and a film based on the book will be released in late 2019.

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Episode 89 – Carbon Nanotubes

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Gadhadar Reddy

In his 1979 novel, Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C Clarke imagines a cable stretching from the Earth’s equator to Geosynchronous orbit. He called it a “space elevator” and imagined it would be constructed from continuous pseudo-one-dimensional diamond crystals. Bangalore based NoPo Technologies is now commercially producing Carbon Nanotubes. Could this material, one day be used to construct Clarke’s space elevator?

Materials that offer high strength alongside low mass are highly sought after by the aerospace industry. In the past, it was aluminium, titanium and Carbon fibre. The new wave of materials consists of Graphene and Carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes like diamonds, soot and graphene are allotropes of Carbon. Same atomic structure but differ in physical construction.

NoPo Technologies was established in 2011 by the CEO Gadhadar Reddy and is already commercially supply Carbon Nanotubes to Japan and elsewhere.

Some of the themes we discussed include:

  • NoPo Technologies was incorporated in 2011 and is probably the only producer of Carbon Nanotubes in India at the present.
  • Carbon Nanotubes have desirable attributes of high thermal and electrical conductivity, tensile strength, resilience to radiation and are extremely lightweight.
  • Nopo Technologies commercially produce single-walled Carbon Nanotubes of about 8 nm diameter and 2000 nm long.
  • Use cases currently include lightning conductors on aircraft, insulators for cryogenic fuel tanks, black surfaces for star trackers on spacecraft and molecular scale filters that can be used for producing biological membranes or even water filters for desalination plants.

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  • NOPO Offices in Bangalore
  • Electron Microscope
  • Carbon Nanotubes
  • Anto assessing a new batch of Carbon Nanotubes
  • Manufacturing vessel
  • Raman Specrometer

Episode 84: NASA after the Shuttle. SLS and The Gateway

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David Baker

David Baker has been involved with the USA since childhood. First attending a US school in England and then studying in the US under a scholarship program sponsored by Senator Clinton P Anderson. He returned to the USA and worked for NASA on various programs from Gemini to the SpaceShuttle. He was present in mission control in 1970 and witnessed the drama of Apollo 13 first hand.

He joined the British Interplanetary Society in 1965, published his first article in the society’s journal Spaceflight in 1969 and since 2011 has been the editor of that very journal -Spaceflight. To date, he has published a remarkable 110 books by the close of 2018 with a few more in the pipeline for 2019 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11.

(Note – following questions on the veracity of his Phd, David Baker resigned from the BIS as the editor of Spaceflight on 25th March 2021.)

In this episode, we talk about the current status of the space programme in the US and the changing role of NASA.

  • The USA has not been able to launch US astronauts from the USA since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. NASA found itself in a similar position between 1975 (Apollo Soyuz Test programme) and the first Space Shuttle in 1981.
  • Why NASA dropped the Ares programme and why its replacement, the Space Launch System (SLS) schedule remains unclear. The first SLS mission, uncrewed – Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) by 2020 and the second crewed mission, Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) by 2023.
  • The successor to the ISS, the “Gateway” is an international project for a space station in lunar orbit. Only about a third of the size of the ISS and it will have fewer international partners.
  • The gateway is seen by Russia as an American lead programme. Will Russia participate with the gateway or consider a joint Russia/China human spaceflight programme?
  • China/USA cooperation in space has been prohibited ny US law. What prospects that this will change?

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Episode 83: India’s Human Spaceflight Programme with R Umamaheswaran

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R. Umamaheshwaren. Credit: Author

R Umamaheswaren was born in 1963, the same year that India initiated its space programme with the first-ever launch of a rocket into space from Indian soil. He is currently serving as the Scientific Secretary to the chairman. This was recorded at the IAC2018 (so a little noisy background). Audio and video available below.

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He first joined ISRO in 1987 as an avionics and communications engineer at the VSSC and has held several posts including

  • Deputy director for the GSLV launch vehicle
  • Mission director for 3 GSLV launches
  • GSLV Mk3 to launch in November 2018 with high throughput satellites GSAT-29 to support the Digital India programme. A total of 100GBPS will be available from space once the other two satellites  are launched.
  • Dr. Lalitambika. Directeor of ISRO Human Spaceflight Programe. Credit TEDX
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO

Fundamental system and engineering challenges have been addressed and  India is ready for human spaceflight. ISRO conducted a Pad Abort Test on 5th July 2018 – Youtube video here. Currently, the roadmap looks like this

  • Crew selection – discussion underway.
  • Two uncrewed missions will take place – no animals required. Sensors and instruments will be sufficient.
  • Astronaut training – under discussion. Astronaut training support will be required from a third country – yet to be announced. 
  • Not necessary for potential applicants to be test pilots.
  • Prospect for a female to be part of the first crew is “very high”.
  • First uncrewed flight start in late 2020.
  • A longer vision for Human Spaceflight –  priorities not yet defined.