ISRO pioneer R. Aravamudan narrates the gripping story of the people who built India's space research programme and how they did it - from the rocket engineers who laid the foundation to the savvy young engineers who keep Indian spaceships flying today. It is the tale of an Indian organization that defied international bans and embargos, worked with laughably meagre resources, evolved its own technology and grew into a major space power. Today, ISRO creates, builds and launches gigantic rockets which carry the complex spacecraft that form the neural network not just of our own country but those of other countries too. This is a made-in-India story like no other.

On 21 November 1963, the first rocket took off from Thumba, a fishing hamlet near Thiruvananthapuram, announcing the birth of India's space programme. The rocket, the payload, the radar, the computer, the helicopter - all that was required for the launch - came from outside the country. Fifty years later, on 5 November 2013, when ISRO launched its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, all of it had been indigenously manufactured. Ten months after the launch, on 24 September 2014, India became the first country in the world to put a satellite around the Red Planet in the very first attempt. From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet tracks this stupendous journey through articles, interviews and reminiscences with contributions from intellectual giants like Dr Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan, M.S. Swaminathan, Jacques Blamont, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, U.R. Rao and Dr K. Kasturirangan, among others, this is the story of India's space journey from its modest beginnings to its rendezvous with Mars.

Fifty years in the making, India's Space Programme is fulfilling the vision of its founders and delivering services from space that touch the lives of 1.3 billion people every day. In addition to operating a collection of satellites for weather, Earth observation, navigation and communication today, India has a spacecraft orbiting Mars and a space telescope in Earth orbit. This book provides the big picture of India's long association with science, from historical figures like Aryabhata and Bhaskara to Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, the key architects of its space program. It covers the scientific contribution of Indian scientists during the European Enlightenment and industrial revolution. It traces the technological development of Tipu Sultan's use of rockets for war in the 1780s; the all-but-forgotten contribution of Stephen H Smith's use of rockets as a means of transport in 1935 in northern India; and the emergence of Sriharikota – India's spaceport, the heart of India's modern Space Programme. • A detailed account of how a fishing village in Kerala was transformed into a space centre and used to launch India's first rocket into space on 21 November 1963. • A detailed summary of India's space infrastructure – launch vehicles, deep space network, Telemetry, Tracking and Command and space assets in orbit. • Description of how the ordinary people of India benefit from the services delivered by the space programme • Why India chose to go to the Moon and Mars and how it got there. • The prospects for India's ambitions in space for human spaceflight, national security and scientific exploration • An analysis of how India's Space Programme may play out on the global stage. Will it compete or collaborate with China, USA and Russia in space? This detailed work, in 645 pages, 29 tables and 9 appendices, is richly illustrated with 140+ illustrations (some images published for the first time) and supported by over 1,000 references. It is written for the non-specialist, offering a big-picture view.

A top scientist is falsely accused of selling space technology secrets. A police inspector's misadventure with a Maldivian woman results in a fabricated espionage case. A faction within a political party capitalises on the case to bring down a government. An intelligence agency obligingly plays into the hands of vested interests to slow down India's space programme. And a complex investigation finally proves the allegations untrue. In this riveting book, Isro scientist S Nambi Narayanan - who was falsely accused of espionage in ISRO spy case of the 1990s - and senior journalist Arun Ram meticulously unpick the ISRO spy case, revisit old material and discover new details to expose the international plot that delayed India's development of a cryogenic engine by at least a decade. It took four years for the CBI to exonerate Nambi, but his fight for justice to ensure action against the officers who faked the case and tortured him in custody continues. This book is as much a history of the early days of India's ambitious space programme as it is a record of one of the most sensational cases that enthralled the nation long before the era of online updates and 24-hour news cycles.

In the vast cosmic expanse, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) shines as a beacon of human ingenuity and determination. Join author Anand Shinde on a celestial journey through the captivating history of ISRO, India's pioneering space agency. From its modest beginnings to the groundbreaking triumph of Chandrayaan-3, this book chronicles ISRO's evolution, technological breakthroughs, and remarkable missions that have left an indelible mark on the world. Explore the challenges and triumphs that define ISRO's journey, from launching its first satellite to conquering lunar and interplanetary missions Mangalyaan. Uncover how ISRO's contributions transcend the boundaries of Earth, revolutionising communication, weather forecasting, agriculture, and disaster management, benefiting millions. As you traverse these pages, discover the tales of brilliance, dedication, and scientific curiosity that have made ISRO a source of immense pride for every Indian. Experience the celestial odyssey that reshaped India's destiny among the stars, inspiring generations to dream beyond the horizon and explore the wonders of the cosmos.

The Siamese Manuscript holds the distinction of being the very first document relating to Indian Astronomy to reach Europe in a pristine form. Some fragments of Indian Astronomy had undoubtedly reached Europe in earlier times, but those tidbits were likely received in a highly altered form due to difficulties in translation, and the so-called cultural barrier. The Siamese Manuscript helped overcome this barrier by being a compendium of Indian astronomical knowledge in plain Siamese. The timing of the arrival of the manuscript in Europe was significant. After a couple hundred years the Renaissance was finally bearing fruit, and European intellectual prowess was at a peak. The deeper principles of Indian Astronomy, which had gone over the heads of the Greeks and the Arabs who first encountered them, could now be fully understood and appreciated for the first time by people outside India.

This book is an introduction to ISRO, the organization that took India to space. - It tells the complete story of ISRO-from its inception to present times-and offers insights into how India's scientific community has performed well even with limited resources. - India's recent Chandrayaan mission ignited the general public's interest in the strides that we are taking in the area of space technologies.