ISRO : a personal history

272 Pages·2017·5.92 MB·English

ISRO
A PERSONAL HISTORY
RAMABHADRAN ARAVAMUDAN is an award-winning senior
scientist who has been associated with the Indian space
programme from its very inception. He has served as the
director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota
and of the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.
GITA ARAVAMUDAN is a veteran journalist and author with
several books and hundreds of articles to her credit.

ISRO
A PERSONAL HISTORY
R. ARAVAMUDAN
WITH
GITA ARAVAMUDAN
HarperCollins Publishers India
First published in India in 2017 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © R. Aravamudan and Gita Aravamudan 2017
P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-363-9
E-ISBN: 978-93-5264-364-6
246 8 10975 3 1
R. Aravamudan and Gita Aravamudan assert the moral right
to be identified as the authors of this work.
The views and opinions expressed in this book are the authors' own
and the facts are as reported by them, and the publishers are not in any
way liable for the same.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.
HarperCollins Publishers
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Printed and bound at
Thomson Press (India) Ltd
To all my colleagues at ISRO, present, past andfuture, my
co-travellers on India's incredible journey into space

Contents
Prologue ix
1 The Beginning 1
2 Those Were the Days 22
3 TERLS: The International Launch Station 35
4 Finding Our Feet — and Wings 49
5 Early Learning Experiences from Around the World 64
6 The Growing Years 85
7 Sarabhai 101
8 Turbulent Times 116
9 Streamlining 132
10 SLV: Our First Homegrown Launch Vehicle 141
11 ASLV: Hurdling through to Success 148
12 Sultan of SHAR 159
13 Growing Pains 166
Vlll CONTENTS
14 The Story of GSLV 175
15 From Rockets to Satellites 190
16 Using Space Technology 203
17 The Way We Work 208
Epilogue 217
Annexure 1 219
Milestones 219
Annexure 2 231
Indian Spacecraft 231
Annexure 3 234
Size of Indian Launchers 264
Acknowledgements 235
Index 237