India to orbit, attempt retrieval of capsule in january



Countdown begins for Indian in space

Pranab Dhal Samanta
Posted online: Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 0000 hrs
50-kg capsule to be launched in 10 days, to test for re-entry
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/19791.html

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 30: Ten days into the New Year, India will launch a
space capsule.


The 50-kg capsule, which will be brought back after 15-30 days, will be the
country's first big step towards a manned space mission.

It's the first time the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will test
its "re-entry and recovery" technology. The capsule will fall somewhere in
the Bay of Bengal and will be recovered by the Navy.

The re-entry and recovery phase is the most crucial aspect of any manned
mission in outer space and by putting it to test, sources said, ISRO will
send a clear signal that India has started preparations for sending a man to
space. This will mark a key shift from ISRO's policy to restrict space
exploration to meet national development goals.

In fact, this technology was being part-tested by dropping it from different
heights using helicopters till now. But this is the first serious attempt at
mastering this technology by bringing back a capsule from outer space. Only
US, Russia and China have so far sent manned missions to space.

The capsule is to be launched on the PSLV C7 that will also put in orbit
Cartosat 2. Two other satellites, one from Indonesia, the other from
Argentina, will also be launched, making it the first time that a launch
will carry four payloads. Until now, ISRO's launch vehicles have not carried
more than three payloads.

The decision to test re-entry and recovery technology was taken after about
80 scientists from the across the country gave their unanimous consent to
sending a manned mission to space at a conference in Bangalore in November.

The idea of such a brainstorming conference came from PM Manmohan Singh
after ISRO head G Madhavan Nair made a presentation to him on October 17.

The capsule experiment will allow ISRO to deal with problems that occur
during the re-entry phase. It was during this critical phase that space
shuttle Columbia carrying Kalpana Chawla disintegrated. A host of areas that
ISRO had never dealt with like temperature changes during re-entry would be
tested for the first time.

The other objective of the mission is the safe recovery of the capsule. For
this, co-ordination with the Navy is already underway.