It was a cold early morning of 19th April 1975 in the Hotel Academy Nayulc near Oktyabraskya metro station in central Moscow; when I got up at about 5 am. By six o’clock I was ready and walked towards lift on the seventh floor, where other scientists and engineers were also waiting for the ground floor lift.
The weather outside the hotel was cold and foggy. We all boarded a van which started towards a ground station Medvazhye Ozera (Bear Lakes) outside Moscow. The road was quiet except for the road cleaning trucks.
I had come to Moscow in the month of March 1975, along with a team of scientist and engineers from ISRO, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad and TIFR Mumbai. I was part of the team which stayed back in Moscow and the other team went to Cosmodrome, from where the soviet booster rocket put the satellite in earth orbit.
I took part in the pre-launch operations in which compatibility of the ground station had been tested for receiving incoming telemetry data by air flowing the flight model of the satellite with helicopter. Also telecom systems were tested at Shriharikota Ground station then.
Both Indian and Soviet Space Scientists, specialists willingly shared their knowledge and experience. We started calling the ground station building as Indian house in Moscow. The building was surrounded by green pine trees, Russian birch velvet grass. It was a big building with natural surroundings. All ground systems were in adjacent rooms except for telecommand transmitters. It also had a small kitchen and a big hall for entertainment with a Television, a music system and a piano; all rooms were interlinked by intercom. Today this might sound ordinary but in those days it was luxury for all of us.
There was regular telephone communication happening between Bears Lake, Cosmodrome (Russia), Shriharikota, Bangalore and Ahmedabad (India). Shriharikota and Bears Lake were also connected by tele-printer link for transfer of telemetry data of three pay loads for scientific experiments- (1) X-Ray Astronomy (2) Solar Physics i.e. Neutron and Gamma Rays (3) Cosmic Rays.
The ground station at Bears Lake which was to track and control the space craft was nearly 30 km from Moscow.
Unlike other days that day there was complete silence in the van. We reached the station after 7 o’clock in the morning. At the entrance of the building we were welcomed by our Russian colleagues. Also greeting us were Indian and Russian flags hoisted proudly. Everybody present there had mixed feelings of success and though the mood was festive but not free from an uneasy quietness.
After the morning tea every one of us went to the assigned positions. I started towards tele-command transmitter building which was 600 mtr. away from the main building. The stone- paved foot road laid amidst the grooves of wild raspberries, strawberries and springy red bilberries. I reached the room; it was damp and cold from inside so I switched on the electric room heaters and the intercom.
I switched on the two 1 kilowatt VHF Transmitters which were indigenously manufactured at ISACS Bangalore and installed at Bears Lake ground station. I checked the power and frequency and informed my readiness to main control room. In similar way other ground systems located in different rooms reported their readiness in sequential order as per the previous day’s trial run of the operations.
Immediately control room informed about the successful take off of the soviet booster rocket from Cosmodrome. This message was relayed to all stations.
And then a heavy silence fell on the building; there was no movement, no sound and minutes ticked away slowly. I sat in the room listening to the lulling rustle of the pine tree tops and thinking about the past events.
THE SATELLITE
It all started with the establishment of the Indian scientific satellite project ISSP at Bangalore in October 1972. That was the first step in the implementation of this new project. The ISSP was given the responsibility to design and fabricate the satellite within a couple of years. The main justification was that, the Indian Scientists would in the process acquire the capability of building electronic systems capable of withstanding the rigorous environmental conditions of outer space. This knowhow could be extensively used in the fabrication of the country’s future satellites helping country’s socio economic goals; such as communications, rural education, resource surveys etc.
The project started from scratch when the first delegation of soviet scientists arrived in Bangalore in March 1973. There was not even a drawing of a building where project blueprints could be produced. Later ISRO built a modern centre for developing earth satellites.
The execution of this highly complex project took nearly two and half years. The satellite weighed nearly 360 kg and it was most sophisticated both in terms of scientific and technical tasks. The satellite research instruments and service systems (i.e. power supply, temperature control, stabilization, telemetry, command, communication etc.) were executed at the highest engineering level.
There are few statistics to illustrate. Indian satellite carried more than 12000 active solar cells, more than 25000 connections and couplings of all types. The total length of wiring exceeded 7 kms. All this had to be integrated to a sophisticated unit and its foolproof operation had to be guaranteed. The young engineers, scientists and technicians proved equal to the challenge. Needless to say they took tremendous and strenuous effort to achieve this.
BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA
Everybody was sitting tense and with fingers crossed. After a long wait of nearly 40 minutes (which was the exact time taken by rocket to put the satellite into the circular orbit i.e. 619 km in the apogee and 563 km in perigee) a signal was received from the spacecraft far out in the space for few minutes.
And suddenly the man in the control room shouted with joy “Da Signal, Yes Signal” these words heralded the successful entry of India in to space. Then all the Russian and Indian scientists gathered to celebrate with Russian champagne. This marked India’s capabilities in the field of Space Research and gave momentum to the programme.The satellite then named after the first astronomer and mathematician of ancient India ‘Aryabhatta’.
The weather outside the hotel was cold and foggy. We all boarded a van which started towards a ground station Medvazhye Ozera (Bear Lakes) outside Moscow. The road was quiet except for the road cleaning trucks.
I had come to Moscow in the month of March 1975, along with a team of scientist and engineers from ISRO, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad and TIFR Mumbai. I was part of the team which stayed back in Moscow and the other team went to Cosmodrome, from where the soviet booster rocket put the satellite in earth orbit.
I took part in the pre-launch operations in which compatibility of the ground station had been tested for receiving incoming telemetry data by air flowing the flight model of the satellite with helicopter. Also telecom systems were tested at Shriharikota Ground station then.
Both Indian and Soviet Space Scientists, specialists willingly shared their knowledge and experience. We started calling the ground station building as Indian house in Moscow. The building was surrounded by green pine trees, Russian birch velvet grass. It was a big building with natural surroundings. All ground systems were in adjacent rooms except for telecommand transmitters. It also had a small kitchen and a big hall for entertainment with a Television, a music system and a piano; all rooms were interlinked by intercom. Today this might sound ordinary but in those days it was luxury for all of us.
There was regular telephone communication happening between Bears Lake, Cosmodrome (Russia), Shriharikota, Bangalore and Ahmedabad (India). Shriharikota and Bears Lake were also connected by tele-printer link for transfer of telemetry data of three pay loads for scientific experiments- (1) X-Ray Astronomy (2) Solar Physics i.e. Neutron and Gamma Rays (3) Cosmic Rays.
The ground station at Bears Lake which was to track and control the space craft was nearly 30 km from Moscow.
Unlike other days that day there was complete silence in the van. We reached the station after 7 o’clock in the morning. At the entrance of the building we were welcomed by our Russian colleagues. Also greeting us were Indian and Russian flags hoisted proudly. Everybody present there had mixed feelings of success and though the mood was festive but not free from an uneasy quietness.
After the morning tea every one of us went to the assigned positions. I started towards tele-command transmitter building which was 600 mtr. away from the main building. The stone- paved foot road laid amidst the grooves of wild raspberries, strawberries and springy red bilberries. I reached the room; it was damp and cold from inside so I switched on the electric room heaters and the intercom.
I switched on the two 1 kilowatt VHF Transmitters which were indigenously manufactured at ISACS Bangalore and installed at Bears Lake ground station. I checked the power and frequency and informed my readiness to main control room. In similar way other ground systems located in different rooms reported their readiness in sequential order as per the previous day’s trial run of the operations.
Immediately control room informed about the successful take off of the soviet booster rocket from Cosmodrome. This message was relayed to all stations.
And then a heavy silence fell on the building; there was no movement, no sound and minutes ticked away slowly. I sat in the room listening to the lulling rustle of the pine tree tops and thinking about the past events.
THE SATELLITE
It all started with the establishment of the Indian scientific satellite project ISSP at Bangalore in October 1972. That was the first step in the implementation of this new project. The ISSP was given the responsibility to design and fabricate the satellite within a couple of years. The main justification was that, the Indian Scientists would in the process acquire the capability of building electronic systems capable of withstanding the rigorous environmental conditions of outer space. This knowhow could be extensively used in the fabrication of the country’s future satellites helping country’s socio economic goals; such as communications, rural education, resource surveys etc.
The project started from scratch when the first delegation of soviet scientists arrived in Bangalore in March 1973. There was not even a drawing of a building where project blueprints could be produced. Later ISRO built a modern centre for developing earth satellites.
The execution of this highly complex project took nearly two and half years. The satellite weighed nearly 360 kg and it was most sophisticated both in terms of scientific and technical tasks. The satellite research instruments and service systems (i.e. power supply, temperature control, stabilization, telemetry, command, communication etc.) were executed at the highest engineering level.
There are few statistics to illustrate. Indian satellite carried more than 12000 active solar cells, more than 25000 connections and couplings of all types. The total length of wiring exceeded 7 kms. All this had to be integrated to a sophisticated unit and its foolproof operation had to be guaranteed. The young engineers, scientists and technicians proved equal to the challenge. Needless to say they took tremendous and strenuous effort to achieve this.
BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA
Everybody was sitting tense and with fingers crossed. After a long wait of nearly 40 minutes (which was the exact time taken by rocket to put the satellite into the circular orbit i.e. 619 km in the apogee and 563 km in perigee) a signal was received from the spacecraft far out in the space for few minutes.
And suddenly the man in the control room shouted with joy “Da Signal, Yes Signal” these words heralded the successful entry of India in to space. Then all the Russian and Indian scientists gathered to celebrate with Russian champagne. This marked India’s capabilities in the field of Space Research and gave momentum to the programme.The satellite then named after the first astronomer and mathematician of ancient India ‘Aryabhatta’.
