How ISRO’s 100th mission reflects its original startup spirit

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In the prologue to ISRO: A Personal History, the book I co-wrote with my husband, R. Aravamudan—one of the first to join India’s fledgling space programme in 1962—he described the excitement and anxiety that preceded the first-ever launch from Sriharikota on 10 August 1979.

“By the second half of the 1970s we were on a high," he wrote, “we were getting ready to launch SLV3 our first homegrown launch vehicle." They were not a battle-hardened team of professionals with scores of successful rocket and satellite launches behind them. “But we were young, highly motivated and hardworking. None us had been part of an actual satellite launch, and now we were thirsting to realise our pre-flight dreams," he recalled.

They were not put off by the sceptics who asked what a bunch of youngsters could do or scoffed that they were “reinventing the wheel". Or even the fact that the launch was taking place five years after the date for which it was originally planned. All those involved with that first launch were new to the process, and both ISRO and the government backed them without question.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the mission director, had built the SLV (satellite launch vehicle) with his team, and Aravamudan had designed and built the tracking system from scratch. Both had been close friends for over a decade, from their days at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.

Also read: The long, slow journey of ISRO's women scientists The launch was scheduled for early morning. Aravamudan was sitting at the console monitoring his tracking systems. “The countdown clock was ticking and Kalam had given the mission director’s clearance for the launch.