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On May 10, 2023, the Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft was launched. Just a few hours later, the ground station received the news that Tianzhou-6 had successfully docked with the Chinese space station.
In addition to one of the world's most capable cargo spacecraft, there is another highlight of the mission: international cooperation projects from the University of Tokyo and other institutions in Japan have been transported to the space station through Tianzhou-6.
But it is puzzling that the Nebula Gas Spectroscopy Research Project, a Sino-Indian cooperation project that was supposed to take off during this mission, did not appear in the mission list.
It was later confirmed that the failure of the project was due to the technical blockade imposed by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. The Indian media's assessment of this is: without India's cooperation, the Chinese space station is just an empty shell.
Are India's collaborative projects really so important? Why is the Indian government going against China in space?
The pace of space exploration in India
The United Nations Committee on Outer Space famously concluded that the development of space technology was a shortcut for developing countries to catch up with developed countries. India is convinced of this.
As early as 1947, Indians created the now famous Indian Physical Research Laboratory, which was originally tasked with developing sounding rocket technology. At that time, no country could send artificial satellites into space.
In 1962, India transformed some of its former research institutions into the Indian Council on Space Research. The Commission was later renamed the Indian Space Research Organisation and is now part of the Indian Ministry of Space and is the hub of India's space sector.
In the second year of the establishment of the National Council on Space Research, India successfully launched its first sounding rocket.
In 1975, India launched its first self-developed satellite with the help of Soviet rockets and launch sites. Five years later, India successfully launched its own SLV3 rocket, sending an experimental satellite into outer space.
At that time, India's economic situation was very serious, and the Sriharikota Space Center, where the launch mission was carried out, was opened from a small fishing village, and many rocket and satellite components were transported to the launch site by ox carts and bicycles.
Even so, it is admirable that India has never interrupted the development of space technology.
In 1988, India made another major breakthrough in space technology, and its first independently developed sun-synchronous orbit remote sensing satellite IRS-1A was successfully launched in Bangalore, after only the United States, the Soviet Union and France had mastered this technology.
By 1999, India had launched IRS-1B, IRS-1C, IRS-P6 and other generations of remote sensing satellites, of which the latest generation of IRS-P6 has a panchromatic image resolution of 2.5 meters, and many developed countries are ashamed of themselves. And this year, China has only initially mastered this technology.
Also in 1999, the Kargill War broke out between India and Pakistan. During the war, the Indian army once occupied the initiative on the battlefield, but the United States immediately cut off the GPS signal of the Indian army, and finally India had to end the war early.
The Indians were greatly stimulated to develop their own satellite navigation system and eventually build a small satellite network to cover India and surrounding areas.
Compared with China's Beidou and the United States' GPS, India's navigation system is positioned differently, and its target is not the global market, but it is enough to ensure that India is no longer subject to human control as it was in 1999, which is another major step forward for India.
After entering the 21st century, India's pace of space exploration has slowed down, but it is still carried out methodically, and there are new highlights from time to time.
In 2008, India sent 10 satellites into space with a PSLV-C9 rocket, becoming the fifth country after the United States, Russia, Europe and China to master multi-satellite technology with one arrow.
And India's starting point is quite high, and it was not until 2017 that the United States began to use one-stone technology on a large scale. This year, India completed a 104-star launch, setting a record again and sparking heated discussions around the world.
In 2013, India made a leap forward in the field of Mars exploration, sending the Mangarian Mars rover, which weighs 1.35 tons and carries five detection instruments.
On September 24, 2014, the probe successfully entered Mars orbit, marking India as the fourth country to successfully carry out Mars exploration after the United States, Russia and the European Union, and the only one to reach Mars on its first attempt.
In October 2022, Mangarian lost contact with the ground station, and India's first Mars exploration activity ended early, but 8 years is already a long time, the Indians are enough to obtain a huge amount of first-hand information, and India will also gain a first-mover advantage in the future development of Mars.
Despite economic difficulties and backward technology, India has still achieved an early start and continuous breakthroughs in space exploration. After the improvement of economic conditions, India's space technology still maintains rapid development, which is enough to see the importance that Indians attach to outer space.
It is a pity that in the new historical period, the mentality of Indians has changed.
India's lunar exploration project: compete with China and throw the pot at China
Vikram Sarabhai, the first chairman of India's National Space Research Council, once pointed out that India has no illusions about competing with other countries in the field of space and manned space flight.
After entering the 21st century, China's space technology has developed rapidly and has continuously surpassed India. With China's manned space flight and lunar exploration, the Indian mentality has begun to be unbalanced.
In 2007, Chang'e-1 was successfully launched and smoothly integrated into lunar orbit, and India accelerated the process of exploring the moon.
The Indians' lunar exploration program is divided into three steps: first to achieve a flight around the moon, then to achieve a soft landing, and finally to send astronauts to the moon.
On October 22, 2008, India followed China in launching their first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1. The probe carries 11 scientific payloads from India, the United States, the European Union and Bulgaria.
After more than ten days of flight, Chandrayaan-1 was incorporated into lunar orbit on November 8, and scientific exploration activities were launched. Over the next 10 months, Chandrayaan-1 made a lot of progress, such as the discovery of large amounts of magnesium, aluminum, and calcium on the lunar surface, and the discovery of the complex water cycle on the moon.
However, in August 2009, Chandrayan-1's directional navigation function suffered a serious failure and eventually lost contact with the ground station. The Indians set a two-year orbit operation time for Chandrayan-1, but its actual operating time was only 10 months.
It wasn't until 10 years later that India restarted its lunar exploration program. The new Chandrayaan-2 will not only achieve a flight around the moon, but will also make a soft landing on the lunar surface.
On July 22, 2019, Chandrayan-2 was launched. In the month or so that followed, Chandrayan-2 returned a large number of photos and data, and successfully changed orbit several times.
On September 2, Chandrayaan-2's lander successfully separated from the orbiter, and a few days later the lander began attempting to land.
The new lunar exploration program is only one step away from success, and it is this last step that makes the whole plan fall short. On 7 September, the Indian Space Research Organization announced that the lander had lost contact just 2.1 kilometers from the lunar surface.
Subsequently, the Indian Space Research Organization confirmed that the speed of the lander was not effectively controlled as early as the beginning of the landing operation, which led to the crash of the lander.
After the failure of Chandrayaan-2, the capacity of the space research organization was questioned, and the budget for lunar exploration was greatly reduced. However, seeing China's side successively achieve soft landing and lunar sampling, the competitive psychology of Indians has never been satisfied.
As early as early 2020, the Indian government approved the latest Chandrayaan-3 plan. According to the original plan, Chandrayan-3 will take off in 2021 to challenge a soft landing again.
But the Indian Space Research Organization is clearly not ready. After several delays, the launch schedule of Luna 3 was more than two years later than scheduled, and it was not sent into space until July 14, 2023.
After the launch of Lunakan-3, the Indian Space Research Organization vowed that all the parameters of the satellite were within the normal range, but NASA quickly slapped them in the face.
According to the plan, the Lunar Car 3 probe will first enter an orbit of 170 kilometers at perigee and 36,500 kilometers at apogee, and then gradually approach the moon. However, NASA observations indicate that the actual orbit of Luna-3 is an orbit of 138 kilometers at perigee and 36,306 kilometers at apogee.
This means that Luna 3 has been seriously off track from the start.
Since then, Yueche-3 has changed its orbit four times in a row, but has not reached the scheduled track. From the third orbit change, the Indian Space Research Organization simply stopped disclosing information to the outside world.
It was not until after the implementation of the fifth orbit change that the Lunar Car 3 barely entered the intended orbit. The loss of fuel caused during this period will greatly affect the implementation of the follow-up plan.
As for the reasons for the orbital deviation, the Indian Space Research Organization has put the blame on China, saying that Chandrayan-3 was maliciously interfered with by Chinese satellites and saying that Chinese materials were used on Chandrayan-3.
China has inexplicably become India's target of dumping, but everyone knows that India just can't find any reason this time.
In fact, the reason why Lunar Car 3 deviated from its orbit was due to its own design. Although the Indian Space Research Organization has repeatedly claimed that Luna-3 is carrying India's most powerful rocket, the LVM3-M4 rocket has a geosynchronous transfer orbit capacity of only 4 tons, and the Earth-Moon transfer orbit capacity is only 2 tons.
Indians are well aware of their lack of power, so it takes a full 40 days for Luna 3 to go from lift to lunar orbit. It's just that they didn't expect that this problem would have such a serious impact from the very beginning.
Fortunately, after this turmoil, there was no abnormality in the follow-up plan of Chandrayaan-3. If nothing else, Lunaka 3 will land on the moon on August 23.
China-India Space Station Cooperation: Backtrack, Anti-Ridicule of China
Back in 2006, India announced its own manned spaceflight program. But more than a decade later, the plan is still on paper.
China, on the other hand, has not only sent astronauts into space many times, but also set up its own space station.
In 1992, the Chinese government set a three-step strategy for manned spaceflight, first realizing manned spaceflight, then launching a space laboratory into space, and finally establishing a space station.
In 2003, Shenzhou 5 sent astronaut Yang Liwei into space and flew around the earth for 14 weeks, taking 21 hours and 23 minutes, successfully realizing the first step in the three-step strategy.
In the following 20 years, the Shenzhou series of spacecraft has sent 18 astronauts into space, many of them even two or three times.
In 2011 and 2016, Tiangong 1 and Tiangong 2 were launched successively, and the second step of the three-step strategy was successfully completed.
On April 29, 2021, the core module of the Chinese space station, Tianhe, was launched from the Wenchang Cosmodrome, and China's manned space program officially entered the third phase.
The Tianhe core module has a total of five interfaces, two of which are used to connect the experimental module, and the other three are used to dock the Shenzhou manned spacecraft, the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft and other aircraft.
In the following year or so, the Wentian experimental module and the Mengtian experimental module were successfully connected with the Tianhe core module, and the Shenzhou spacecraft and Tianzhou spacecraft also sent personnel and materials to the space station many times.
With the steady development of China's space station program, many countries have extended olive branches to China, hoping to reach cooperation.
In June 2019, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that 9 cooperation projects were identified from 42 applications, from 23 institutions in 16 countries, of which 6 were fully adopted and the other 3 were conditionally adopted.
The Nebula Gas Spectroscopy (Sing) project from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics is one of six projects that have been fully adopted.
This project is developed by Murthy of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, the main device includes telescopes, spectrographs and other equipment, the cost of 50,000 US dollars, the design life of half a year to a year, its main function is to study the composition and change of interstellar gas.
According to the agreement, the experimental device will arrive in China in November 2022 and be transported to the space station by the Tianzhou-6 spacecraft in 2023.
However, when the appointed time came, the Indian side was slow to deliver the equipment, and after repeated urging, it still did not fulfill its promise.
As we all know, Tianzhou-6 has been lifted into space on May 10, 2023, which means that the cooperation between the two countries has ended in failure.
After the cooperation failed, many people wondered why India was slow to implement the cooperation agreement. It was not until August that the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, revealed why.
It turned out that Murti's team had completed the final assembly of the equipment two months before the agreed time, and had strong expectations for the cooperation between the two sides.
But for the equipment to be shipped to China, an export license from India's Ministry of External Affairs is required. Due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries, India's Ministry of External Affairs has been slow to issue export permits, which has led to the collapse of cooperation.
Subsequently, the Indian media Ac News published an article titled "China Waits to Install Indian Equipment to the Tiangong Space Station", describing the incident as China's urgent need for India to provide SING equipment, otherwise the Chinese space station will be useless.
Such articles greatly satisfy the vanity of Indian society, but is this really the case?
According to the cooperation agreement, China will send equipment from various countries to the space station free of charge, and conduct experiments in strict accordance with the requirements, and all countries will obtain experimental data free of charge afterwards.
This will greatly save countries' research funds and reduce the difficulty of experiments, which is one of the reasons why they are so interested in cooperation on the space station. As Murthy said, if the launch costs were not borne by China, his R&D expenses would have far exceeded budget constraints.
Nebula gas research has long been not the most cutting-edge technology, as early as the 18th century, German scientists have achieved the determination of the solar spectrum. A $50,000 project may still be difficult for other countries, but for China, it's a piece of cake.
There is no need to elaborate on who the Indian government has lost by obstruction.
Resources
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The Chandrayaan-2 mission failed, and India's space industry advanced in twists and turns[J].International Space,2019(09):64.)
CHEN Yourong. The development of Indian space technology is remarkable[J].Modern Military,1996(12):19.)
HUANG Zhicheng. The development of India's space power[J].International Space,2009(07):30-36.)