Essay on “India in Space” Complete Essay for Class 9, Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

India in Space

In India, the space program we was formerly launched in 1972 with the setting up of the Space Commission and the Department of Space. Advancement in areas of communication, meteorology, resources survey and management, develop satellites, launch vehicles and associated ground systems were the initial objectives. Since then, India has made impressive progress in this field. Space technology has not only enhanced India’s communication capabilities, but has also contributed in meteorological forecasting, providing advanced disaster warning, search and rescue measures and distance education to remote areas.

From a historical perspective, the first Indian satellite was Aryabhata, which was launched by a Soviet rocket on 19th April 1975. This was launched from a cosmodrome near Moscow: It was designed and built by Indian scientists and engineers of Indian Space Research Organization. Orders and instructions were transmitted to the experimental 360 kg satellite Aryabhata from the control station at Sriharikota.

Bhaskara-I was the second Indian satellite and Bhaskara-II the third which were launched from the same Soviet cosmodrome mainly for observations on the earth.

With the successful launch of SLV-3 on 18th July, 1980 when a 35 kg satellite called Rohini I was placed in LEO, India became only the seventh nation in the world to achieve space orbit capability. This was the first time when a satellite was launched from Indian soil. This was followed by the development of SLV-3 D1, launched on 31st May 1981 injecting a 38 kg Rohini-D1 satellite into an orbit near the earth. Its life ended prematurely, nine days after the launch instead of 90 days as envisaged. The second development flight SLV-3 D was launched on April 17, 1983 from the launch pad Sriharikota. It put the 41.5 kg Rohini satellite RS-D2 into low earth orbit. It carried a two-band solid state camera called ‘smart sensors’ to take images of identification of landmarks for orbit. It could also classify the ground features such as water, vegetation, cloud and snow and helped in evaluating the vehicles performance for future flights.

APPLE, which is an abbreviation of Ariane Passengers Payload Experiment, was India’s first geostationary telecommunication satellite. It was shot into orbit on June 19, 1981 by European Space Agency’s Ariane rocket from Kourou in French Guyana.

Since 1982, a series of multi-purpose application satellites like I NSAT-1A, I NSAT-1 B, I NSAT-1C I N SAT-1 D, I NSAT-2A, I NSAT-2B, INSAT-2C, INSAT-2D, INSAT-2E and INSAT-3B have been launched. INSAT-1B and INSAT-1C are geostationary satellites. Nowadays, INSAT-1 B is used extensively for weather forecasting. INSAT-1 B is also used to receive and retransmit telephone calls. INSAT-2A launched in 1992, is the first indigenously built multi-utility satellite, hurled into space by Ariane vehicle from Kourou. Lounched on March 22, 2000 INSAT- 3B is the first satellite from third generation, is meant for business, development and mobile communication. The telecommunication and mass communication capabilities of the INSAT system, which is linked with the International Telecommunication Satellite (INTELSAT), is being used by the Oil & Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), the Indian Post &Telegraph Department with 28 fixed and 3 transportable stations, Doordarshan, Indian Meteorological Department, All India Radio, etc.

India’s first operational Earth Observation satellite IRS- 1A, a 850 kg satellite was launched into a 900 km polar orbit on 17th March, 1988 by a Soviet rocket. In 1997, India used its own rocket PSLV to place IRS-1 D into polar orbit. On April 18, 2001, GSAT-1 was successfully launched by India’s first development flight of GSLV-1 from Shriharikota in A.P. It marked the maturing of India’s space launch capabilities. The satellite is meant for conducting communication experiments. And on October 22, 2001, ISRO’S Polar Satellite Launch Vechile (PSLV) successfully launched three satellites Technology Experiments Satellite (TES) of India, Bispectral Infrared Detection Satellite (BIRD) of Germany and Project for on Board Autonomy (PROBA) of Belgium.

The principal rocket & satellite testing and launching station is SHAR in Sriharikota island in Andhra Pradesh. The ISRO satellite centre in Bangalore has the primary responsibility for planning, design, development, fabrication, integration, test and qualification of satellites. The primary tasks of the Space Application Centre at Ahmedabad are to conceptualise, plan and execute projects. National Remote Sensing Agency at Secunderabad, an autonomous registered society supported by Department of Space, utilizes modern remote sensing techniques for planning and management of the country’s natural resources and provides operational support for various users. The experimental data of NRSA finds application in many fields such as land use, pollution monitoring, soil classification, cartography, geological and geographical survey, oceanography, agriculture, etc.

Satellite technology have strengthened existing telegraphy, telephony, wireless telegraphy and also radio communication. Bio-prospecting in India is becoming a lot easier, with satellites helping Indian scientists reap nature’s benefits. Scientists are using the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites to map vegetation, ecological zones and landscapes to provide valuable information that biologists could use in their hunt for new resources. Researchers from more than a dozen institutes have teamed up for the research, project supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Space (DOS).