The successful Chandrayaan-3 touchdown of Vikram has been uplifting and motivating for all. The moon landing is a metaphor for what we all can learn from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Great organisations set ambitious goals and focus on them. They develop and put in place detailed processes for every task. While processes are important, they ensure that these don’t hold the organisation hostage. Flexibility and lots of room for innovation are essential. They develop an organisational culture that is thoroughly professional, yet collegial, and one which keeps the success of the team as important, and above navel-gazing individualism. They recognise that teams need strong leaders who can develop programmes and be clear-headed in a crisis.
By definition, exploring frontiers is fraught with hurdles — both anticipated and unanticipated — coming both from the complications of having to work under extreme conditions and from having to deal with difficult local operational realities. Beating the odds is done not by the chance purchase of a winning ticket but by the painstaking pursuit of science, technology, engineering, and management. Despite all of this being in place, every groundbreaking effort will face many pitfalls, until earlier frontiers become routine and newer ones are explored. That humans see and accept this, and are inspired by and support extraordinary efforts at exploration, is a testament to our spirit, and has been a key component to our survival as a species.
There are two inseparable sides to the Isro coin. Missions that are of immediate and direct use for the country and explorations through science and technology, whose use and applications may not be apparent now or ever. Decades ago, in the early days of Isro, the goals of getting rockets launched and satellites into orbit were key. India’s first launch was on November 21, 1963, from Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram. Our first satellite, Aryabhata, was designed and fabricated in India and launched from the Soviet Union in April 1975.
Isro has come a long, long way since. Working with the ministry of earth sciences, the agency has transformed India’s use of remote-sensing tools in climate, weather and ocean science and technology. National and global efforts now allow a detailed mapping of our terrestrial landscape and of our biodiversity. Isro’s communication satellites have transformed education, communication and entertainment. None of this was in the sights of the agency in 1963, but the fact that new frontiers will arise and will have to be explored was. Its ambitions and goals were not constant but kept expanding.
Over the past few decades, the exploratory, commercial and societal value of space exploration has amplified far beyond what was imagined. Several countries have joined the space club and the competition is stiff.
For Isro to have a presence and be a significant player required a rejig of its function. To its enduring credit, the agency has accomplished this difficult restructuring task in an impressively rapid manner. With the creation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), the private sector will have a very major role in all aspects of space exploration and application. IN-SPACe is a single-window, independent, nodal agency with the responsibility to enable the building of launch vehicles and satellites, and providing space-based services. The resources and facilities of Isro are now available to the non-governmental sector. Through IN-SPACe, Isro will also partner in the development of new facilities and resources.
IN-SPACe will work with educational and research institutions, thus broadening the science and tech reach in space exploration. The department of space has also started a company, New Space India Limited (NSIL), that will market all of Isro’s technology developments — from circuits and systems to launch technologies and satellite capabilities. The results of these steps will enable academia, industry and start-ups to dive deep into space science and technology in a manner that will ensure that India continues to be a major player in space, 20 years from now.
There are two lessons. The first, from the Aryabhata era, is to not hesitate to get started on tasks which most people will dissuade you from taking up. This well-meaning advice ranges from saying that there are more important things to be done to warning that such adventures are beyond one’s reach and are useless. Of course, there are always more important and immediate tasks, but, as Isro has shown, exploration and development of indigenous capability pays back on important and immediate tasks.
The other lesson is from IN-SPACe and NSIL, the impact of whose creation we will see amplifying steadily. This lesson is to avoid complacency, to judge every changing environment, to keep evolving and to not forget to connect science to innovation and society.
Today, both lessons are important in every sphere of our lives. By consciously combining fundamental science and exploration with application, by taking on audacious and ambitious goals despite all the internal and external constraints, and by changing to keep relevant and effective, there is much to be inspired by, and learn from Isro. Society is a key partner. As funders of frontier exploration, citizens and governments must see value in such efforts.
K VijayRaghavan is former principal scientific adviser and DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor, National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR. The views expressed are personal
