ISRO successfully performs first trajectory correction on Mars Orbiter

[Developereo]

I remember watching this documentary on landing on Mars using rubber balls when I was in grade 10. I was really impressed and thought it was crazy idea and right out sci-fi. And a few years later they did it I was so damn impressed by NASA

The first time I heard about the NASA plan, I was convinced it was an internet hoax. I couldn't believe it was an actual NASA plan.

But it worked.

 

[Developereo]

French or Russians didn't help us in any way to build our rocket engines......

Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States

Between July and October, however, ISRO personnel were found on site in the Russian rocket manufacturing plants that made the cryogenic stages and Indian officials claimed that Russia transferred more than "4/5ths" of the sanctioned production technology. 8 India Minister of State in the Department of Atomic Energy and Space also announced that, contrary to the Russians' pledge not to transfer "technical manuals" that would permit India to produce its own cryogenic rocket engines, Russia sent it "drawings of the engine" in September of l993 that would enable India to produce the engines within a few years.

That's the cryogenic engine (GSLV).

The PSLV (which launched MOM) uses French technology.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - Indian Space Projects

The second stage is powered by ISRO's Vikas liquid propellant rocket engine, an analog of the French Viking engine acquired by ISRO through TOT in 1978.

'public domain'

If you read my post, the public domain referred to algorithms and technologies used by spacecraft to orient themselves and navigate in space, not to engine technologies.

 

[isro2222]

@me_itsme am here. Mars mission still 50-50. When it reach mars orbit than the real test will start.... By the way 2014 many deaths will happen. 2014 is a year of tears and storms, typhoons, twisters, cyclones. 2014 is about wind power.... Countries like america, china, australia, uk, philippines, indonesia, japan, india, bangladesh etc etc will be in trouble. Specially america and philippines. Btw here about black knight....
The “Black Knight” Satellite? | Mystery of the Iniquity

@me_itsme am here. Mars mission still 50-50. When it reach mars orbit than the real test will start.... By the way 2014 many deaths will happen. 2014 is a year of tears and storms, typhoons, twisters, cyclones. 2014 is about wind power.... Countries like america, china, australia, uk, philippines, indonesia, japan, india, bangladesh etc etc will be in trouble. Specially america and philippines. Btw here about black knight....
The “Black Knight” Satellite? | Mystery of the Iniquity

 

[nForce]

Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States

Between July and October, however, ISRO personnel were found on site in the Russian rocket manufacturing plants that made the cryogenic stages and Indian officials claimed that Russia transferred more than "4/5ths" of the sanctioned production technology. 8 India Minister of State in the Department of Atomic Energy and Space also announced that, contrary to the Russians' pledge not to transfer "technical manuals" that would permit India to produce its own cryogenic rocket engines, Russia sent it "drawings of the engine" in September of l993 that would enable India to produce the engines within a few years.

That's the cryogenic engine (GSLV).

The PSLV (which launched MOM) uses French technology.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - Indian Space Projects

The second stage is powered by ISRO's Vikas liquid propellant rocket engine, an analog of the French Viking engine acquired by ISRO through TOT in 1978.



If you read my post, the public domain referred to algorithms and technologies used by spacecraft to orient themselves and navigate in space, not to engine technologies.

I think you are simply playing the Devil's advocate here.

With the knowledge and information present in public domain, you can easily build your own website.And you can pay some money to get trained on some particular implementation.Now that does not mean that everybody runs a Google from their garage, getting me ?

 

[oFFbEAT]

Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States

Between July and October, however, ISRO personnel were found on site in the Russian rocket manufacturing plants that made the cryogenic stages and Indian officials claimed that Russia transferred more than "4/5ths" of the sanctioned production technology. 8 India Minister of State in the Department of Atomic Energy and Space also announced that, contrary to the Russians' pledge not to transfer "technical manuals" that would permit India to produce its own cryogenic rocket engines, Russia sent it "drawings of the engine" in September of l993 that would enable India to produce the engines within a few years...

That is American propaganda.....like their WMD claim regarding Iraq....LOL
The Americans have successfully prevented transfer of cryogenic tech. from Russia to India.....otherwise we would have already acquired the tech.

Regarding, technical manuals and blueprints, they're available in your so called 'pubic domain' too.......Pakistanis can search for it and develop their own engine if it is so easy.....LOL

Here is your manual and blueprint.....
Cryogenic rocket engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ......let's see how many Pakistanis can develop a cryogenic engine tomorrow by reading that....

...The second stage is powered by ISRO's Vikas liquid propellant rocket engine, an analog of the French Viking engine acquired by ISRO through TOT in 1978.

Technology transfer is not a new thing and is not specific to any particular group/country......
India, for example, exported an 'explosive detection tech.' to America few months back.......

Press Information Bureau English Releases

 

[Developereo]

I think you are simply playing the Devil's advocate here.

All I did was to respond to the rather tall claim that India will do what US and Russia couldn't. My comment was that India is able to do all this because US and Russia laid the groundwork.

This is not to deny India's accomplishment, nor does it mean that India couldn't have been the first in an alternative universe.

I am talking about what is, not what could be or might have been.

That is American propaganda.....

Uh huh sure.

 

[oFFbEAT]

All I did was to respond to the rather tall claim that India will do what US and Russia couldn't. My comment was that India is able to do all this because US and Russia laid the groundwork...

LOL......US and Russia laid the groundwork for India's mars Mission?....

Uh huh sure.

Of-course it is, otherwise you would've quoted my entire post....

 

[me_itsme]

@me_itsme am here. Mars mission still 50-50. When it reach mars orbit than the real test will start.... By the way 2014 many deaths will happen. 2014 is a year of tears and storms, typhoons, twisters, cyclones. 2014 is about wind power.... Countries like america, china, australia, uk, philippines, indonesia, japan, india, bangladesh etc etc will be in trouble. Specially america and philippines. Btw here about black knight....
The “Black Knight” Satellite? | Mystery of the Iniquity

@me_itsme am here. Mars mission still 50-50. When it reach mars orbit than the real test will start.... By the way 2014 many deaths will happen. 2014 is a year of tears and storms, typhoons, twisters, cyclones. 2014 is about wind power.... Countries like america, china, australia, uk, philippines, indonesia, japan, india, bangladesh etc etc will be in trouble. Specially america and philippines. Btw here about black knight....
The “Black Knight” Satellite? | Mystery of the Iniquity

Interesting, why do you say so? And regarding the black knight, very interesting, just going the article. I am surprised why stuff like this is not there in mainstream news.

 

[Not Sure]

Cryogenics is not an easy technology to master. Cryogenic rocket engines use liquid hydrogen as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidiser. Oxygen turns liquid at minus 185 degree centigrade, and Hydrogen at minus 256 degree centigrade. The materials used must withstand extreme cold. But, the other end of the engine must withstand extreme heat — over 2,000 degrees.

India had until now (from 2001 to 2007) launched five GSLV satellites into space, all of them powered by Russian cryogenic engines. Three of them were successful. Yet, it was because of the Russians that India embarked on developing its own cryogenic technology.

Under Mikhail Gorbachev, Glavkosmos, the Soviet Union space agency, had agreed to transfer cryogenic engines and technology to ISRO. But very few countries have access to cryogenics and those who do, guard it zealously. The US, Europe, Japan and China are averse to sharing. The Russians of course made an exception for India. India and the USSR said cryogenic technology was strictly for non military uses. They would only be used for communication and weather satellites.

The US did not believe them. In 1991, the Bush (senior) administration invoked the Missile Technology Control Regime, an association to stop proliferation of missiles that could be used for mass destruction, to impose sanctions on the Soviet and Indian space agencies. Soon after, the Soviet Union disintegrated and the a new government under Boris Yeltsin took control. Yeltsin’s government favoured the West. In 1993 Yeltsin arrived at a compromise after he met Bill Clinton (who had taken over from Bush in January 1993) in the US. Russia would not transfer the technology, but it would sell seven cryogenic engines to India.

India decided to fight back — by developing its own cryogenic technology. Over the last 17 years, Indian scientists, most of them at ISRO’s liquid propulsion centre in Thiruvananthapuram, worked on what was termed CUSP, cryogenic upper stage project. “Cryogenic technology is not just about the engine. Each stage is like a rocket by itself,” says an ISRO official.

ForbesIndia

 

[oFFbEAT]

ForbesIndia

But the delusional Pakistanis think, the world is always ready to transfer latest tech. on India's demand....as if India is the boss.......they don't have the capability to understand that, if that was the case, we wouldn't be testing our engine year after year in order to achieve success....

.....actually it's not their fault also, they're used to getting readymade Chinese crap on demand.....so they've no idea what 'testing' is all about......
When India goes through years of trial and error, the Pakistanis competently disregards it as they don't understand its significance and finally when we achieve success, it appears to them as if someone else has 'gifted' us the technology...

 

[Not Sure]

But the delusional Pakistanis think, the world is always ready to transfer latest tech. on India's demand....as if India is the boss.......they don't have the capability to understand that, if that was the case, we wouldn't be testing our engine year after year in order to achieve success....

.....actually it's not their fault also, they're used to getting readymade Chinese crap on demand.....so they've no idea what 'testing' is all about......
When India goes through years of trial and error, the Pakistanis competently disregards it as they don't understand its significance and finally when we achieve success, it appears to them as if someone else has 'gifted' us the technology...

Actually, had the Clinton administration not tried its best to keep India out of the Cryogenic club, India was surely going to get it from the Soviet Union. Except for a few politicians like Yeltsin, entire USSR was in favor of transferring the tech to India, and Indians did want it anyhow they could get, with valid reasons behind the hurry. Even the Russian scientists wanted to transfer the tech to India, but not in a way that would go beyond the Missile Tech Control Regime.

So all the Indians got were the GSLV rockets themselves, "smuggled legally" from the Soviets and had to build it all themselves.

.


In 1994 key scientists engaged in India’s indigenous cryogenic engine were arrested by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Kerala Police on charges of espionage. The most serious allegation was that they had fallen into a honey trap set up by a foreign intelligence agency – supposedly Pakistan’s.



Back then nobody in the media asked this simple question? Why would India’s leading scientists fall for two very ordinary looking women? If a honey trap was really employed to penetrate the top secret cryogenic programme, wouldn’t the foreign agents arrange some real honeys instead of overly fat femmes?

What really happened?

When investigations lead to a dead end, one has to look for the motives. Who benefits from the failure of the cryogenic programme, which will power India’s heavyweight rocket, the GSLV? Clearly not Pakistan, which is not in a position to compete with India in space. Also, after achieving nuclear parity with India, it does not feel existentially threatened enough to take on India in all areas.

In this backdrop, Narayanan’s allegation that the United States wanted to stunt India’s space programme deserves to be looked into. According to the scientist, his arrest was part of an agenda of the United States accomplished by the CIA conniving with rogue IB agents.

One of them says Narayanan was Rattan Sehgal, who was the IB’s counter intelligence chief and was associated with the ISRO investigation. Sehgal was later caught red-handed by the then IB chief Arun Bhagath. He was accused of having worked for the CIA, which led to his unceremonious exit from the IB in November 1996.

Related:


India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which finally investigated the case, discovered a really bizarre detail from the case diary of the Kerala Police. The CBI in its report noted that all those working on cryogenic engine development in ISRO – including the Russian scientists who were helping India – had been made accused. Charges were also slapped against Ural Aviation, the airline which brought Russian cryogenic engines and other relevant items to India.

Narayanan says Kerala Police officer Siby Mathews had a definite plan that all persons working for development of cryogenic engine technology should be arrested to demoralise them. That was the reason why he was arrested in November 1994 without conducting any search of his office or residence and also without seizure of any incriminating evidence from him.

The rocket that came in from the cold

The popular narrative is that in 1991 Russia had agreed to transfer cryogenic technology to India but the United States – anxious to prevent India from developing a powerful rocket with possible military applications – intervened and forced their man, President Boris Yeltsin, to backtrack on the deal.

With Russia then firmly in the Western camp, India realised there were limits to cooperation with Moscow as long as Yeltsin was at the helm. However, the two sides did not allow the issue to become a sticking point.



New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis says the two sides reached a compromise solution, “whereby Russia was to withhold from passing on to India those elements of technology that could be used for dual purposes. But the technology not considered dual purpose was to be transferred”.

However, according to columnist and investigative journalist Madhav Nalapat, although the Bill Clinton administration had sought to scupper the Russian sale of cryogenic engines to India, “Russian scientists friendly to India had secretly handed over blueprints relating to the making of such engines”.

“This soon became known to the CIA, which is believed to have orchestrated the plan to paralyse the program by sending its key scientists to prison,” says Nalapat. “Although the charges were found to be entirely false, that vindication took a decade to come about, and in the process, the Indian programme was slowed down by an equivalent number of years.”

Target India

The cryogenic team wasn’t the last to be systematically targeted. The bodies of K.K. Josh and Abhish Shivam were discovered near the railway tracks at Penduruthy near Vishakapatnam Naval Yard. The two were engineers connected with the building of India’s indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, Arihant.


Earlier, in February 2010, M. Iyer, an engineer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) was found dead in his residence. Iyer was strangled in his sleep. For those not in the loop, BARC is the top secret facility where India’s nuclear warheads are produced.

Nalapat says according to the Government of India, over just a three-year period, there have been at least nine unnatural deaths of scientists and engineers at just BARC as well as the Kaiga nuclear facility in southern India.

In fact, if you go further in the past, the death of the father of the Indian atomic programme, Homi Bhabha, in a plane crash over the Alps is equally mysterious. So is the death of pioneering space scientist Vikram Sarabhai at the age of 52.

High stakes game

The Mars mission is a sideshow – a mere $75 million roll of the dice. Less spectacular but vastly more important is the planned launch of the GSLV in December. The GSLV is the granddaddy of India’s rocket arsenal. Compare this: while the much hyped Mars probe, Mangalyaan, is carrying an instrument package weighing just 15 kg, the GSLV is designed to carry Indian astronauts to the moon in the early 2020s. The heavy lift rocket is also needed to launch the next generation of India’s spy satellites, which ideally should not be launched from foreign shores.


Now check this out. The Mars mission took just 15 months to launch after it was green-lighted. The GSLV project on the other hand has taken over three decades and yet according to Narayanan it has been a stubborn disaster. When you join the dots….the finger of suspicion points only in one direction.

Protection racket

Unlike Iran, which has provided round the clock security to its top nuclear scientists after five of them were murdered (perhaps by Israel) India does not even offer its personnel working on strategic projects even token protection.

With the vast array of brain power at its disposal it is India that’s most likely to deliver the next Sputnik moments. Whether it is Mars, moon or the asteroids, ISRO has planned more spectacular rendezvous for the near future, culminating in a manned moon landing.

On the other hand, reeling under severe budgetary pressures, some of the established powers might not welcome India’s arrival on what they consider has been their turf for over more than half a century. Considering the stakes involved, the least India should do is ramp up protection for its key scientists.

 

[nForce]

All I did was to respond to the rather tall claim that India will do what US and Russia couldn't. My comment was that India is able to do all this because US and Russia laid the groundwork.

This is not to deny India's accomplishment, nor does it mean that India couldn't have been the first in an alternative universe.

I am talking about what is, not what could be or might have been.

Point well taken...

 

[oFFbEAT]

On the other hand, reeling under severe budgetary pressures, some of the established powers might not welcome India’s arrival on what they consider has been their turf for over more than half a century. Considering the stakes involved, the least India should do is ramp up protection for its key scientists.

That is asking too much from our corrupt and sold out politicians....

 

[Not Sure]

That is asking too much from our corrupt and sold out politicians....

I differ a little on this.

The corrupt politicians are (yes, they are, but) less traitorous than the IB officials (read: bureaucrats). In fact, in this particular case as well, the development of Cryogenic engine delayed for over a decade because of a sold out IB official who headed the counter intelligence department.

To understand the extent of damage caused to India’s space programme because of the ISRO spy case, one has to first look at how close India was to mastering cryogenic rocket technology.

Without a reliable GSLV India will continue to pay heavy launch fees to foreign space agencies. Because it takes several hours to fuel up a cryogenic rocket, such a rocket cannot be used as a ballistic missile.

This leads to two questions. One, if the United States is really concerned about India developing long-range ballistic missiles, then shouldn’t it try and stop the guys at the Defence Research & Development Organisation, which makes the Agni missiles? Secondly, why would the United States want to delay the development of India’s heavy lift commercial rockets?



It doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure that out. India is the only developing country with heavy lift ambitions and its ultra-low cost model could one day put the likes of NASA out of business. That’s an eventuality that the United States wants to delay for as long as it can.

Birth of a rocket

Author and broadcaster Brian Harvey writes in his exhaustively researched book ‘Russia in Space: The Failed Frontier’ that in the late 1980s India was looking to develop a massive rocket to launch satellites into 24-hour orbit. India first talked to Japan but nothing came off it. Hearing of these overtures, the Indians were approached first by General Dynamics Corporation, which offered an American engine. But the cost was prohibitive as was an offer shortly thereafter from Europe's Arianespace.

“Just then a third approach came, this time from the Soviet Union, offering two engines and technology transfer for the more reasonable price of $200 million,” writes Harvey.

The Russians were offering a secret engine, the RD-56 or KVD-1, built by the Isayev Design Bureau. The KVD-1 had unsurpassed thrust and capabilities and NASA had nothing that could match the Russian engine for years. In fact, the rocket engine was originally developed as part of the Soviet manned moon landing programme as far back as 1964.

Over to Moscow

On January 18, 1991 the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) inked an agreement with the Russian space agency Glavkosmos for the transfer of cryogenic technology. Following the collapse of its Soviet empire, Russia was under considerable American influence. In this backdrop, both Glavkosmos and ISRO anticipated the United States would try and stymie the deal.

So Glavkosmos and ISRO drew up Plan B – outsource the manufacture of the cryogenic engines to Kerala Hi-tech Industries Limited (KELTEC). The arrangement was designed to get around the provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) – a Western cabal that aims to deny ballistic missile technology to non-Western countries, especially India.

The space czars of the two countries – Aleksey Vasin, officer-in-charge of cryogenic technology in Glavkosmos, and ISRO Chairman U.R. Rao – reckoned that if Russian cryogenic technology was passed on to ISRO via KELTEC, technically it would not be a violation of the MTCR.

Rocket row

The arrangements were denounced by American President George Bush as a violation of the MTCR. In May 1992 the United States slapped sanctions on ISRO and Glavkosmos. “India objected strongly to the American actions, pointing out that high-powered hydrogen-fuelled upper stages which took a long time to prepare were of little military value,” writes Harvey.

India also pointed out the Americans had offered them the very same technology and had made no objections throughout the years 1988-92 when the arrangements had begun.

So does that mean the Americans were trying to achieve the dual aim of crippling both the Indian and Russian space programmes? Well, here’s Glavkosmos’ version.

Glavkosmos official Nikolai Semyonov accused Washington of attempting to destroy Russia's space industry. “When working out the contract, we used the MTCR guidelines in reaching the contract with India...what is more, Indian partners said at the start and later confirmed that they would use our technology exclusively for peaceful purposes.”



Glavkosmos Chairman Aleksandr Dunayev said both Russia and India had called for an international inspection to determine that the deal did indeed comply with the terms of the MTCR. However, the United States did not respond to the proposal, but sent a US team to Russia to examine the situation.

Clinton: Playing hardball with India

Former US President Bill Clinton and his hawkish wife Hillary Rodham Clinton are for some inexplicable reason considered friends of India. It was under President Clinton that Russia backed off its proposals to transfer technology to India and suspended its agreement, invoking force majeure (circumstances beyond its control).

Under the revised Russia-India agreement in January 1994, Moscow agreed to transfer three, later renegotiated by India to seven fully assembled KVD-1 engines, without the associated technology. The United States also inserted a humiliating clause, according to which India would “agree to use the equipment purely for peaceful purposes, not to re-export it or modernise it without Russia's consent”. No blueprints were to be given to India.

Duma fury

The Russian Parliament, however, was in no mood to let President Boris Yeltsin bail on India. On July 21, 1993 it passed a resolution declaring that international negotiations and agreements regarding the MTCR must be ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation.

A day later, Glavkosmos upped the pressure on Yeltsin, saying a decision to alter the Indian contract needed a special decision of the government. “We shall not stop fulfilling our obligations under the (Indian) contract until there is a government decision to the contrary,” said Glavkosmos’ Semyonov.



Really friendly scientists

Russian scientists sympathetic to the Indian cause realised the tech transfer window was about to close, and decided to transfer the production technology to their old friends.

However, with American spies crawling all over Russia during the early 1990s, transferring such a large cargo wasn’t going to be easy. “ISRO first contacted Air India but the airline said it could not transport the equipment without customs clearance. And that was not possible without the American lobby in Russia coming to know about it,” J. Rajasekharan Nair reveals in his book, Spies From Space: The ISRO Frame-Up.

So ISRO entered into an agreement with Russia’s Ural Airlines, which was ready to take the risk for a little extra money. According to Harvey, “The appropriate documents, instruments and equipment were allegedly transferred in four shipments from Moscow to Delhi on covert flights by Ural Airlines. As a cover, they used 'legitimate' transhipments of Indian aircraft technology travelling the other way to Moscow for testing in Russian wind-tunnels.”

This was confirmed by cryogenic team leader Nambi Narayanan who told the Indian media he was on board the flights that transported the technology to India.

The knife turns

The United States knew further arm-twisting at the diplomatic level would not be productive, says Nair. “So the CIA was entrusted with the job of aborting the circumlocutory transfer of cryogenic rocket technology through KELTEC, and of stalling or discrediting the transportation of raw materials and spare parts to ISRO.”



Who’s working for the CIA in India?

The first hint there was a foreign hand trying to destroy – or at the very least slow down – India's space programme surfaced in 1997 when five leading scientists – Satish Dhawan, U.R. Rao, Yashpal, Rodham Narasimha and K. Chandrasekhar – along with former Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan wrote a joint letter to the government, saying the espionage charges against Nambi Narayanan and Sasi Kumaran were fabricated.

(Dhawan, Yashpal, Narsimha and Rao have been among the most reputed scientists of India)

These were not ordinary people – they were public figures who clearly knew a thing or two about the inner workings of ISRO and the law and order system. And yet despite their plea, the IB tortured Nambi Narayanan to get him to implicated higher ups at ISRO. If Narayanan had cracked and acquiesced, perhaps the entire organisation would have collapsed.

It is a measure of how successful the CIA was in this spy game that its agents in the Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau (IB) were able to have a swing at just about everyone in the cryogenic project.

For instance, the IB had Vasin of Glavkosmos interrogated at Moscow, and tried to link him to the case. “The IB implicated Ural Airlines after airing the lie that Ural had, as part of the espionage activities, transported documents from ISRO to Glavkosmos,” says Nair.

(Nair also claims because of pressure from above, his book was made to disappear from stores and was never reprinted.)

That the policemen who went after India’s top scientists and the IB men who guided them have been either cleared of all wrongdoing or remain unquestioned hints at their connections way up in the political leadership. The big question is who are these people who aided the CIA in scuttling India’s biggest space project?

 

[oFFbEAT]

I differ a little on this.
The corrupt politicians are (yes, they are, but) less traitorous than the IB officials (read: bureaucrats). In fact, in this particular case as well, the development of Cryogenic engine delayed for over a decade because of a sold out IB official who headed the counter intelligence department.

IMHO, they're all hand in glove.....even after an ISRO scientist alleges harassment by the administration leading to delay in such an important project.......were there any initiative by the politicians to look into such a serious matter and find out who were the ones acting against India's interest and punish them?...NO!......'cause they're traitors themselves....