On January 17, India's Minister for Atomic Energy and Space Development announced in Parliament that India would build its own space station by 2030 and implement india's own manned space program in recent years. The Indian media confidently declared: "According to the laws of history", India will be able to catch up with China's space technology before 2030, and the Indian Space Research Organization has launched research on the Indian space station in 2019, and has basically completed the design of the 20-ton space station, and is expected to complete space deployment as early as 2030. India is confused about self-confidence again, seeing China line and feeling that it can do it, and wants to win the space technology competition with China in 10 years, this confidence is valuable, but the degree of detachment from reality is also quite outrageous. In fact, india is currently not ready to implement the above large-scale plan in many aspects, from technology to ideology. The Modi government has been busy proposing the above plan, and its fundamental purpose is to cater to the fantasies of some people in India.
Indian rockets that are still unusable
India's development of space technology has introduced both Western and Soviet technology. Since India adopted a "satellite first, rocket later" space strategy, its early satellites were launched by rockets from the Soviet Union and the European Space Agency. After 2000, India's launch vehicle and satellite technology has matured, thus establishing the necessary foundation for India's development of space power. India is the sixth country in the world after the United States, Russia, China, France and Japan to have the ability to design, manufacture and launch satellites in geosynchronous orbit with fully autonomous rockets. Polar-orbiting satellite launch vehicles and geosynchronous orbit satellite launch vehicles are the main launch vehicles currently used by India. On June 5, 2017, India successfully launched a GSLV-MK3 rocket for the first time, and its mission payload is a geostationary satellite independently developed by India. The GSLV-MK3 rocket has a total take-off mass of 640 tons, and its geosynchronous transfer orbit carrying capacity reaches 4 tons and low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of 10 tons.
There is a big gap between the above-mentioned carrying capacity and the geosynchronous transfer orbit carrying capacity of the first echelon countries of 10 tons and the low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of 20 tons, which also makes the rocket system available in India actually temporarily unable to complete the need to launch large payloads and support manned space launches. From another point of view, since there is no embargo restriction by the relevant countries, India can purchase high-quality mature parts from the international market, which may make the technical starting point of India's manned spacecraft or space station higher, but in the end, what kind of finished products the Indian scientific research department comes up with, it also depends on the level of India's own system integration capabilities. Moreover, India's current "no arrows available" dilemma will continue, and india has made plans to implement technical improvements to existing rockets, with the goal of obtaining usable rockets to meet the needs of manned space launches this year. However, the current time hand has entered 2022, and whether India can achieve the modification target according to the predetermined time node is still a big question mark.
How to divide the Indian aerospace cake?
At this stage, India is still continuing to develop the space system with the strategy of using the military to cover the army, and the Indian Space Research Organization is responsible for the development of various satellites and launch vehicles; and through the integrated space agency of the Ministry of National Defense, the military, the Ministry of Space and the Indian Space Research Organization coordinate the operation of the space system. With the continuous increase of India's space assets, the development of special military space systems and the guarantee of space security have become its important development directions. Due to the low level of the integrated space agency and its subordinate to the headquarters of the Joint Staff of the Ministry of National Defense, its role in the construction of military space systems and combat support is limited. The world's major space countries in response to the escalating space and cyberspace threats, has set up an independent military space department, the Indian government is currently weighing the establishment of an independent space command to carry out military space business, and the civilian or scientific research nature of the general space business from the divestiture, obviously, India's aerospace cake in recent years is also facing a "cut" situation, the Indian central government can coordinate the interests between the Indian military space system and the civilian space system, This will be the key to determining the outcome of India's space system reform. Due to the implementation of the decades-long "military before civilian" space system development strategy, the Indian military space sector has a very high voice in the Indian space system, how to persuade the Indian military space department to provide necessary assistance for civilian space will be a difficult problem facing the Modi government.
India's space program faces much controversy
Gopal Raj, a well-known Indian aerospace science writer, said: "India's desire to develop manned spaceflight shows that the Indian Space Research Organization wants to catch up with China. This is becoming a matter of a country's reputation. I don't know what astronauts can bring back to us when they go into space, and even Europeans who are much richer than us don't have their own manned spaceflight programs." The Indian Institute of Defence Research and Analysis, which has an Indian military background, published an article saying: "Experiments like the space station that are both expensive and technically challenging have only achieved limited success. China's space station program is clearly a demonstration of its technological power. However, it will take decades to become clear the practical and concrete benefits of such schemes. However, such programmes contribute to the development of the space industry and the development of new technologies in other areas, including the military. As a result, there has been a lot of discussion and concern about China surpassing India in the space sector. To understand China's superiority over India, it's important not to make blind comparisons, especially on programs like the manned space and space station. India should restrain itself from emulating China and from implementing ostentatious projects like the manned space or space station that are purely aimed at raising nationalist sentiments."
Apparently, some in India see the Modi government's push for the core purpose of India's spatial development plan: to cater to India's populism and secure its position in power. In addition to the feasibility of India's relevant plans, many indians of insight are also concerned about the sustainability of India's space programs – if the future Modi government's term of office expires, will the new government continue to push forward space technology development plans? It was clear that india would not be able to guarantee adequate benefits from expensive space technology research if its space technology development plans lacked sustainability. At present, the Modi government's space technology development plan is facing many controversies, and whether Modi's "star dream" can be realized is still a question mark.