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Prelude to manned spaceflight?

On Monday, for the very first time, an Indian spacecraft in orbit was brought safely back to earth. From the time small rockets on the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment were fired to slow it down through its fiery re-entry into the atmosphere while heat-resistant tiles protected the spacecraft to parachutes deploying to allow the capsule to drop gently into the ocean, everything went precisely as planned. The uneventful nature of the capsule's maiden voyage is in itself a huge tribute to the Indian Space Research Organisation. Recoverable capsules go back to the dawn of the space age. In August 1960, just three years after the basketball-sized Sputnik I became the world's first artificial satellite, the United States successfully brought back a recovery capsule from an orbiting Discoverer 13 spacecraft. The Soviet Union followed suit with the return of the Korabl Sputnik 2 a week later. Fifteen years later, the Chinese successfully recovered the Fanhui Shi Weixing (FSW) spacecraft at the first try. China has since launched more than 20 FSW satellites for photography missions as well as experiments in space.

Re-entry capability is one of the technologies needed to send humans into space. Less than a year after the successful return of Discoverer 13 and Korabl Sputnik 2, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to venture into space. However, a vast technological gulf separates a simple re-entry capsule from a manned mission. China's manned spaceflight programme ("Project 921") took a decade before the Shenzhou V could carry Yang Liwei to space and back in October 2003. If India embarks on creating an independent capability to send humans into space, it is likely to be a task that is far more complex than anything ISRO has attempted so far. As with the Chinese when they began Project 921, the Indian space agency has excellent capabilities in launch vehicles and satellites. But when human beings are on board, the launch vehicles and spacecraft that carry them have to meet much more exacting standards of reliability. In addition, designing and building a space capsule with appropriate life-support and escape systems that will sustain and protect the astronauts is a huge challenge. The Chinese modelled their Shenzhou spacecraft on Russia's tried-and-tested Soyuz design. When ISRO presented the results of internal studies to a group of senior scientists in November 2006, it estimated that Rs.10,000 crore spread over eight years would be needed to carry out a manned space mission. The success of the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment will probably lend additional impetus for an Indian manned mission. Given its cost and the magnitude of effort required, any Indian manned spaceflight programme that is approved must achieve worthwhile long-term objectives and not be a quest for prestige alone.

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