Indira Gandhi & the First Indian Satellite in Space - Aryabhatta.

Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, whose birth anniversary we are celebrating today ( born on 19th November, 1917), had a major role in the early part of the Indian Space program including choice of the name for the first Indian Satellite - Aryabhatta. Today when India is celebrating Smt Indira Gandhis birth anniversary, it is heartening to narrate an anecdotal story - perhaps one of those not popularly known - about her role in christening the name of the first Indian first satellite as Aryabhatta.

By the early 1960s the geopolitical relation between the two communist nations and the erstwhile comrades - China and USSR - had gone very sour due to their intractable ideological differences between Marxism & Leninism, which the two leaders -  Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev - were strong advocates of. Mao Zedong denounced the communism practiced by USSR and Khrushchev as the work of revisionist traitors and it was this animosity between the two warring comrades that, in a way, helped India launch its first satellite - Aryabhatta. 

It was on the 24th of April, 1970 that the People’s Republic of China became the fifth nation to successfully place a satellite in to earths orbit. The Chinese satellite was flown purely for propaganda purpose, using a tune generator to play the 'East is Red' patriotic anthem. The Chinese satellite weighed 173 kilograms. The Chinese propaganda and their rejoicing of the success of their satellite launch and pretending to rub shoulders with USSR that  prompted the then USSR to nudge the Indian Ambassador to USSR - Mr DP Dhar, to inform Smt Indira Gandhi of the intent of USSR to support India launch an Indian satellite. India was in its infancy stage in space technology, when the Russians offered to piggy back an Indian satellite on their rocket. It was the father of the Indian Space program, Dr Vikram Sarabhai, who had tasked Prof UR Rao (who later went on to become the satellite man of India) with the assignment of preparing a consolidated plan for the launch of Indian satellite, which Prof Rao did earnestly. Unfortunately, Dr Sarabhai died prematurely on 31st December 1971. However, at the behest of Prof MGK Menon, who was then the Director TIFR - who was also tasked to temporarily take additional charge of the Indian Space Research Origination - that Smt Indira Gandhi invited Prof Satish Dhawan, who was on a sabbatical to Caltech from IISc, to return back to India and mantle the role of head of ISRO. Smt Indira Gandhi even agreed to the two conditions put forth by Prof Dhawan that he will continue to be the Director of IISc and that the headquarters of ISRO be moved to Bangalore. Due to credit must be given to the late Prime Minister for agreeing to the conditions of Prof Dhawan.

One of the top priorities for Prof Satish Dhawan, when he assumed the charge of ISRO, was to accept the offer of the then USSR for launching an Indian satellite. However, there was a catch in the offer that was made by the USSR. In a meeting of the ISRO scientists and the Russian officials in Delhi, there was just one condition that Russian team put in return for a free launch of an Indian satellite. The condition was quite tough. The Russians wanted that the weight of the Indian satellite must be more than that of the Chinese Satellite (174kg). The Russians wanted to prove a point to their erstwhile ally turned foe that they can facilitate a novice - India - to lanch a satellite, which weighed more than the propaganda driven first satellite that the Chinese had launched. 

Prof UR Rao and his team set out to redesign the satellite with complete details and finally arrived at a weight of 360 kilograms, which was more than double the weight of the Chinese satellite. The site chosen for building the satellite was three sheds in the Peenya area in Bangalore and not Thumba, which was an obvious choice then. Interestingly Prof Rao and his team were not absolutely sure about what the cost of the satellite would be, which they had roughly estimated would cost about Rs 70 Lacs. However, noticing that the estimate was ridiculously low, they arbitrarily increased the estimate by around 5 times and gave an estimate of approximately Rs 3 Crores, which the Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi approved without a blink of an eye and even promising for higher allocation if it so warranted. 

In the early 1970s, India had other social priorities, which among other things included providing ‘Roti, Kapada aur Makan’ to the citizens, the political slogan which had won Mrs Gandhi a major mandate to be elected as the Prime Minister of India. It was also the period when India continued to rely on a scheme called PL 480 under which the Americans sent ship loads of wheat for feeding our countrymen. Therefore, it was quite obvious that during those early years, investment in Indian space program was considered by many as not just a luxury but also a wasteful expenditure. It is in this context that the support of Mrs. Indira Gandhi for the Indian Space program including according an approval of Rs 3 Crores for the launch of the Indian satellite is highly credit worthy. What is more creditable is that Dr Sarabhai the architect of the Indian Space program had died and India had nothing other than launching some sounding rockets to boast of as an achievement in Space technology. It was her strong belief in Prof Satish Dhawan and his chosen team, led by Prof UR Rao, which helped India usher in to Space age. Of course she had for support her ally the USSR who offered free launch of the Indian satellite.

Three names were short listed by the Indian scientists for the Indian satellite - Jawhar, Maitri and Aryabhatta. The first choice was obviously in memory of the founding Prime Minister of India and a man who had special love for Science, the second choice was Maitri, which highlighted an extraordinary friendship between India and USSR and the last choice was Aryabhatta, in honour of the great ancient Indian mathematician. Lo and behold when almost everyone presumed that Smt Indira Gandhi will chose her fathers name, Jawahar, for the first Indian satellite, she took every one by surprise and in no time choose  the last name Aryabhatta and the rest is history.

Aryabhatta weighing 360 kilograms - more than two times the weight of the first Chinese satellite - was successfully launched by the Russian Rocket from Kapustin Yar rocket launch station from the then USSR, on April 19, 1975. Signal from the Aryabhatta satellite was received by the ground stations and the satellite functioned perfectly to plan for four days but most unfortunately, other payloads that were planned with the satellite could not be tested due to the error in the solar panels. However India had successfully launched their first satellite Aryabhatta, which remained in orbit for 17 years finally re-entering earth's atmosphere on February 11, 1992. 

Today when we are celebrating the 104th birth anniversary of Smt Indira Gandhi, who was befittingly hailed as Ma Durga by Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the successful liberation of Bangla Desh from Pakistan in 1971, I join all my countrymen in paying my respect to Smt Indira Gandhi and in hailing her for the confidence that she reposed on Prof Satish Dhawan, Prof U R Rao and their entire team from ISRO in launching the first Indian satellite and naming it as Aryabhatta. Today, ISRO can rightfully rub shoulders with NASA and others in their extraordinary space achievement and that too at frugal cost and for this we must owe our gratitude to Smt Indira Gandhi.