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Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Episode 80 – S Somnath Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

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S Somnath. Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. Credit. Author

S. Somnath joined the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala in 1985 and today he is its director. With more than three decades at ISRO he has held several key posts including director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre. This episode is available in audio and video below.

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This interview was recorded on 5th October 2018 in Bremen germany during the IAC2018., so is a little noisy in parts.

  • ISRO delegation at IAC2018. Credit IAC2018
  • Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Credit ISRO
  • ISRO Stand at IAC 2018. Credit Author

Some highlights include

  • Satish Dhawan – Brought a new vision and restructured ISRO at the organisation level. He consolidated and integrated specialist centres throughout India to the national organisational structure that exists today.
  • Only solid propellants are manufactured on site at Sriharikota. Liquid and cryogenic propellants are transported over a journey of a day and a half from ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Centre to Sriharikota. Currently, only roads are used but sea transport may be an option in the future.
  • The heavy lift GSLV Mk3  second development flight is scheduled to launch before the end of 2018.  A target of three successful development flights is required before GSLV Mk3 is designated as operational.
  • Currently, Sriharikota launch capacity of 12 to 18 launches per year, is determined by the capacity of industry to manufacture launch vehicles. The private sector has all the technological competencies but lacks the capacity. 
  • An additional launch site would not be of value at this time. Once the private sector capacity increases – within the next 2 to 3 years, then additional launch sites would be of use.
  • VSSC played a key role in developing the technologies required for the Human Space Flight programme. The  Pad Abort Test was successful. The parachute detached at the planned time and not prematurely as it looks in the video.
S Somnath. Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

Episode 79: satsearch.co – A single digital marketplace for the global space supply chain?

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Satsearch co-founders  – Kartik Kumar, Alberto Vaccarella and Narayan Prasad

A space startup based in The Netherlands – www.satsearch.co is attempting to establish a single digital global marketplace for space components, products and services.  Ultimately, Satsearch’s goal is to reduce cost and time by helping customers for and suppliers of space components, products and services find each other online.  This episode available in audio and video below.

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The Satsearch website/portal is hosted on a cloud-based environment (Amazon Web Services) and is only available in English but other languages are in the pipeline. Currently, the service to both suppliers and customers is free of charge. How it will make money in the future is not yet year clear but the current focus is on growth. The founders hope to develop Satsearch into a  sort of “yellow pages” for space products and services but with a richer vendor-neutral metadata interface supported by modern AI tools and applications.

Episode 76: Space law

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Bayar Goswami

One of the earliest characteristics of human civilisation (large populations living together in organised cities) was the creation of rules or laws that everyone who lived there agreed to abide by.

The 50th anniversary of first humans to visit the Moon is celebrated later this year. In 1968 it was pretty much just two countries and a few space missions per year. Today, over 70 countries have something in the way of a space programme and along with a blossoming private space sector, space is likely to become very busy in the next decade or so. This surge of space activity will determine how the laws in space will apply and begin to set the scene for human civilisation beyond Earth.   On earth, most nations follow international laws most of the time.

International rules for operating in space were defined by the UN in five treaties established between 1967 – 1984.

  • 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.
  • 1968 – Rescue Agreement. Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1972 – The Liability agreement. Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects.
  • 1976 – The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1984 – The Moon Treaty. Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.

How will these laws fair in space? For example, will all governments

  • “authorise and supervise” their  “non-governmental entities” in space?
  • comply with international liabilities for physical damages caused by their space objects?
  • agree on who can build what and where on the Moon?
  • establish mining and ownership rights to materials on the Moon and other celestial bodies?
  • maintain the principles of human rights in space.

These are some of the questions I discuss with  Bayar Goswami, a Doctoral student at the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University (IASL) in Canada. A TedX speaker, Bayar has an interest in space as well as law and I started by asking him what came first.

The distinction between terms, such as signed, ratified and accessioned, is described here. A status of which nations have signed which treaty is maintained by the UN here. A summary of the five treaties is available here.

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Episode 73: Using Commercial Of the Shelf (COTs) Components to build spacecraft

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If you follow this podcast, you will notice a very long pause since the previous episode. I have been busy writing my second book, the Indian Space Programme which is now finally complete. So I am now back to my familiar but irregular podcasting mode.

The growth in the space sector now widely estimated to be worth annually over 300 billion USD globally. It is primarily being driven by the commercial sector.  The bulk of the expenditure is in satellite television, communication services, Earth observation and businesses enabled by global navigation. In the past, it was technological development driven by the national space programmes that triggered the development of low-cost consumer products. Today it’s the other way round. Sophisticated manufacturing methods and high public demand for digital products have produced low-cost consumer devices which without too much modification can be qualified for use in space. This is particularly true in the sudden growth of the small satellite market.

In this episode, I speak with Dr Rajan Bedi the founder and CEO of Spacechips, a UK based company offering CEO of Spacechips Ltd, which provides industrial R&D and space electronics design consultancy and training services to manufacturers of satellites and spacecraft around the world. I was intrigued by Rajan’s 2017 blog post entitled  “Using and selecting COTS components for space application”. In this episode, I want to understand to what extent spacecraft manufacturers can buy components for spacecraft from the high street.

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