Space technologies assist in driving innovations, expanding knowledge, and enhancing information. An investment in the future, they are an important tool of social and economic development. The first ever economic analysis of the space programme in India, this book discusses the development of satellites and launch vehicles, uses of communication and remote sensing satellites, and demonstrates Indias comparative advantage in producing transponders. For each sector in the application segmentbroadcasting, telecommunications, meteorology, and remote sensingthis study identifies contributions of space technology in terms of cost savings, social benefits, and improvements in the quality of products/services offered. The book emphasizes the need to take the benefits of services to ultimate users in an efficient manner and opens the door for innovative applications of space data in areas such as natural resource management, forecasting of crop yields, urban planning, pollution monitoring, and environmental accounting. It recommends better management of information to meet current challenges of globalization, enhance market potential for space technologies, and the research potential of space economics.

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.

This book gives insights by providing a glimpse into the past, while it connects with the present and delivers perspectives on the future dimensions of India’s space programme. The chapters cover a broad range– Commercial & NewSpace, Space Policy, Space Security, International Cooperation, and Space Sustainability & Global Governance—and they deliver educated suggestions and opinions to policymakers of the country to review their strategies on these issues. Understanding expert opinions in these areas shall bestow the emerging managers of the space programme with holistic insights. This work is a unique collection of thoughts and analyses on matters relevant to space policy and governance, a good account of accomplishments, and thought-provoking puzzles on future possibilities. The authors are national and international experts in different disciplines, both veteran and young scholars, and thus will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, academic researchers, and the public at large. This work can also be a concrete step for continuing discourse on varied subjects or issues of importance, which demand an interactive and evolutionary approach to progress on policy. While there could be some differences in the positions taken by writers with reference to the views of some stakeholders in policymaking, the academic yet non-formal nature of the content in this book will hopefully create enough spaces for reflecting on a cohesive and harmonious framework of policy and its continued dynamism in a field where India can make significant contributions to national and global developments.

This book discusses the journey of Dr. K Kasturirangan, who shares his experience during his long tenure at ISRO including the Chairmanship of ISRO, subsequently membership of the Rajya Sabha, the Planning Commission and many other responsibilities. Over the past five decades of public and professional service to the nation, Dr. Kasturirangan has graduated from a young researcher in astrophysics working under Vikram Sarabhai to leading India’s space program (ISRO), being entrusted by five successive Prime Ministers, besides dealing with several other domains of responsibilities beyond space, all of which have significantly impacted India’s development. This book centers around select 12 public invited lectures, Dr. Kasturirangan delivered ranging from developing hi-tech space systems, to managing an organization as intricate as ISRO which was guided by the wisdom of mentors, including Vikram Sarabhai, M G K Menon, Satish Dhawan and U. R. Rao, to tackling multi-faceted socio-economic issues, including India’s nuclear deal, report headed by him on the Western Ghats ecosystem, and the new National Education Policy 2020. Scientists, historians, policy makers, management strategists, journalists, or anyone with a keen interest in understanding the processes behind such large-scale science, technology and socio-economic endeavors – right from planning, creating appropriate institutional mechanisms, working with multiple stakeholders to ensure that these programs deliver tangible benefits to society, articulating these benefits with clarity to political leaders to assure public support – will find this book deeply instructive and illuminating. It will be of interest to the scientific, education and management community as well as to policy makers and researchers affiliated with multifaceted developmental issues.

This book presents the renewing strategic vision and progressive diversification of the Indian space programme at the nexus socio-economic development, commerce and geopolitics. It disentangles India ́s evolving rationales for engaging in space from a wide range of perspectives and provides novel and in-depth assessment of the domestic, regional and international factors influencing the pace and directions of the country’s space programme. The study hence includes an extensive analysis of India’s path forward, including a reflection on the long-term evolution of its civil, military and commercial space efforts, as well as considerations on the toolbox India has at its disposal, on the prospected adaptation of the space ecosystem, and on the implications these evolutions may generate both domestically and internationally. A central part of this final analysis is more specifically devoted to elaborating on the prospects and opportunities for European stakeholders, with the goal of identifying possible domains of closer and mutually beneficial Europe-India space cooperation and sorting out possible elements for a comprehensive European long-term strategy towards India.

Few space programmes anywhere in the world would have had such a modest beginning: one van and a small fleet of precious bicycles used, besides other things, for ferrying parts of sounding rockets--rockets that glean information on the upper atmosphere--to the launch site. And for use as an office and laboratory was the St Mary Magdalene Church at Thumba, the small fishing village in Kerala where it all started. What the programme lacked in facilities, however, was more than made up for by the dedication of the small band of people who worked there, and their calibre. Leading this team was Vikram Sarabhai, one of the great visionaries of modern India. A great motivator of people, he was able to inspire his talented team to put India firmly on the path to space exploration. Then and now, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has continued to draw gifted people of the stature of Satish Dhawan, Brahm Prakash, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and U.R. Rao, to list only a few. Reach for the Stars: The Evolution of India's Rocket Programme relates, for the first time, how India developed its satellite launch capability. heartbreak, and one rendered all the more difficult as most of the technology had to be developed indigenously, ranging from the rocket engines themselves to precision guidance systems. Today India is able to design and build its own Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) to launch remote sensing satellites used in weather forecasting, resource mapping and crop yield estimates--functions crucial to putting the country on the fast track to development. In fact, the Indian remote sensing satellites form the largest constellation of such satellites in space. From sounding rockets to PSLVs has been a huge technological jump, and in this dramatic and amazing story author Gopal Raj tells how the transition was made, and the reasoning behind some of ISRO's most difficult choices in the course of thirty-eight years. It is specially apt that the book comes when the Indian rocket programme is poised at the edge of a new phase of growth, when cryogenic technology will give India the capability to launch its own communication satellites. story of a group of people who, as with their gravity-defying rockets, could rise above their limitations to accomplish the impossible.

Touching Lives is not merely a chronicle of the community outreach of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is the story of journeys to far corners of India meeting people whose lives have been transformed by technology. It is the account of people who have forged a different destiny for themselves, breaking the cycle of poverty and helplessness, with a little help from ISRO. Throwing light on some of the million tiny revolutions sweeping the country, the book takes us from Jhabua to interior Karnataka, from the Sundarbans to Chamoli in Garhwal. It is our chance to meet everyday