Giant leap for India

 India on July 22 successfully launched its second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 from its most powerful rocket with a plan to land the rover on September 7,2019 in the unexplored lunar south pole, exactly a week after the liftoff was aborted due to a technical snag. It is a measure of India’s advancement despite being a late starter. Indian technological knowhow is undisputed. The Chandrayan 2 scientists at ISRO have indeed done the country proud. Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second lunar exploration mission after Chandrayaan-1. Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the mission was launched from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre on July 22, 2019 at 2.43 PM IST to the Moon by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.A successful landing would make India the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the space agencies of the USSR, US and China. If successful, Chandrayaan-2 will be the southernmost lunar landing, aiming to land at 67°S or 70°S latitude. Like National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) on transfer of technology, ISRO, too, can evolve a similar, modern technology transfer framework for its technology to be taken up by non-space industries, while ensuring a geographical spread that is more or less even and national-wide. Each Indian State can then have at least one such local technology transfer partner, allowing for a cooperation model to evolve in the country. Going from a centralized technology transfer model to a decentralized partner-network based model will not only allow absorption of the fruits of space technology by our society, but it will also remove any doubts in the minds of the people who question ISRO’s missions and investments in space. Now that India has arrived at the exclusive space orbit, the rivalry with China is likely to intensify. China pumps in a close to $5 billion while India has invested hardly $1 billion. China’s Chang’e 4, launched from southwest China in early December 2018, landed on the Von Karman crater within the moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest impact crater in the solar system, at 10:26 am Beijing time on January 2, 2019. Although China, the United States and Russia have operated robotic spacecraft on the moon before, Chang’e 4 is the first spacecraft to land on the side of the moon that always faces away from earth. The landing ‘marked a new chapter in the human race’s lunar and space exploration,’ the China National Space Administration said in a statement. China has marched way ahead but that does not mean India is going to remain far behind. In terms of ranking, China is in third place after the US and Russia and India now is in fourth place since the ESA is concentrating mostly on commercial launches. The Europeans have not set their eyes on programmes like the Man Mission. What ISRO has proved is that the scientists are as capable as the best in the business. Furthermore, Indian space technology is mostly indigenous and that itself is a tribute to the space scientists. By being able to build low budget spacecrafts and with innovation, India can dream big.