A six-pound satellite, designed and built by a team of 50 students at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was placed into orbit on October 12th by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C18 (PSLV-C18) of the India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO). Named Jugnu (firefly), the satellite is just about four inches long.

Jugnu’s ejection system, which separates the satellite from the launch vehicle and places it in a precise orbit, will be the subject of a patent to be filed by IIT Kanpur via ISRO. Jugnu cast such a spell on students that some of them shunned tempting job offers just to stay with the project, recalls Project Leader and Mechanical Engineering Professor Nalinaksh S. Vyas.

Shashank Chintalagiri, a physics major, elaborating on his experiences as a project member, told NDTV ” We were initially torn between ISRO’s ‘right way’ of doing things and a more practical approach that we could fit in our small size and weight. “Eventually, we decided to go ahead and design our system, taking cues from other nanosatellites built around the world. …We were able to combine technology used in daily life . . . with the design principles of space technology,” Chintalagiri added.

The 3.5 watt orbiter will conduct remote sensing to map land use and cover, agriculture, soils, forestry, city planning, archaeological investigations and is expected to have a useful life of one year.

India will launch a dozen foreign satellites in the next couple of years, according to the chief of the country’s space agency quoted in Aviation Week.

US Ambassador Tim Roemer (left) meets ISRO head Dr. K Radhakrishnan

“We have  firm orders today for about 12 satellites, which are scheduled to be launched in the coming two years,” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. The satellites are mainly Canadian, German and Indonesian, including a 1,760-lb. spacecraft environment-monitoring satellite from DLF Germany.

What this means:

While India has launched 25 foreign satellites in the past, the increased pace of launches indicates the growing confidence in ISRO and its ability to compete on the world stage. Its subsidiary Antrix is already a signifcant supplier of remote sensing data to entitites worldwide.

On his first day in India, President Obama announced two measures that will warm the hearts of many American defense companies if further steps follow.

• Speaking to business executives in a 20 minutes charm speech, he promised to loosen export controls on American goods destined for India.  Many of these export controls have prevented U.S.  corporations from offering platforms that incorporate the latest technology developed for the U.S. Department of Defense or other American organizations. India for its part has expressed reservations about buying yesterday’s American technology. Israel, Russia, France, UK, Sweden and Italy have consistently offered current products and services to help India’s security needs; as a result Israel and Russia both see India as their largest defense customer and the two countries alternate as India’s largest source of military products in recent years. The loosening of the American controls will put products from General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, ITT, Raytheon and many others in the running. So far Boeing has had a lead over all other American suppliers of defense products.

• There is also news that India organizations such as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (part of ISRO), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and even Bharat Dynamics Ltd (The government owned defense company that makes missiles) are being removed from the US Department of Commerce’s “Entities List”.  DRDO labs removed from the entities list include India’s Armament Research and Development Establishment, Defense Research and Development Laboratory, Missile Research and Development Complex and the Solid State Physics Laboratory. For American companies, this list is a virtual embargo on shipping anything (without some very special permission, that is rarely if ever granted).  This is  good thing for all concerned.   DefenseWorld reports that DRDO is already hungering for possible lucrative offset contracts that may be offered to its labs by foreign suppliers who are required to spend 30% or more of large new orders on enhancing India’s defense capability.
• Note that organizations working on India’s “strategic” nuclear program, such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre  (BARC)in Mumbai remain on this embargoed list. The India Expert does not expect BARC and other Department of Atomic Energy groups (IGCAR etc) to come off the entities list any time soon.  (Of course the nuclear utility, NPCIL, is not on the entities list).

The recent announcement by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)  about a 2013 unmanned mission to the moon – Chandraayan-II –  indicates a forward-thinking, progressing and growing presence of India in space exploration.

The exploitation is a good thing since the first Indian moon expedition included six foreign payloads. Although the second trip to the moon has no foreign “passengers,” due to weight considerations since the mission will include a heavy orbiter, lander and a rover, ISRO has become extremely busy as the primary provider for other nation’s satellite-into-orbit delivery needs.

The ISRO’s rocket, dubbed PSLV, or the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle reached a 25-satellite tally back in July when launching a satellite for Algiers and two other extremely small satellites – one built by the University of Toronto in Canada and another by the University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. The Indian space program has proven that ISRO has the ability with its rocket to produce multiple satellite launches. Additionally, India has the technology for placing satellites in different orbits including polar sun synchronous, geosynchronous transfer and both highly elliptical and low-earth orbits.

In its pursuit toward developing a space program, India initially carried “foreign riders” onboard its PSLV rocket launches beginning in 1999 delivering into orbit a Korean and German satellite together. Accepting foreign payloads was a way to fill open space on launches carrying Indian-owned satellites while earning a little extra revenue. This piggy-backing scheme gave way to many “customer-only” launches creating a revenue stream via ISRO’s operating company, Antrix.

With a return mission to the moon, the ISRO makes good use for developing technology with five experiments geared toward mapping major elements present on the lunar surface as well as the rover probing for the presence of water and various other minerals that may prove to be a great value in a not-so-distant commercial sense. ISRO is studying making a manned mission to earth’s nearest neighbor within the next 15 years, according to Professor U.R. Rao, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Space Sciences and former chairman of ISRO.