Most of the western country think India is a country where you can admire serene cows, dance, the ocean or achieve enlightenment by doing yoga. You can try spicy food or look at the Hindu pilgrimage. The Ganges spill can also be observed, but you can’t fly into space.
This stereotype of India has been destroying since the 1990s. First, our country launched foreign satellites, then began its own and in total sent 300 spacecraft into space. In 2017, India set a record – Indian scientists and specialists became involved in the takeoff of 104 satellites.said by a Russian news agency.
India on the road to space
In the 90s of the last century, the biggest democracy country began its journey into space. From the outset, India adhered to one of its main religious rules, the Ahisma principle. That is, in any case, do not bring harm to living beings and not to use animals in space experiments.
But why, if India began to develop this direction in the last century, no one perceived it as a space power?
Before Indian cosmonauts and satellites declared themselves, programmers did it. The IT market was very wide and much cheaper than in European countries. This relatively cheap labour force helped India launch not only its satellites to space but also ships of other states.
Mangalyan
On September 24, 2014, India sent its probe to Mars. Mangalyan was one of the first spacecraft to reach Mars orbit the first time and not to burn up in its atmosphere. Russian and American ships were not so lucky.
All this time, until 2020, he collected information about the planet, photographed it and sent data to Earth. The weight of scientific instruments in total “Mangalyan” is not very high – only 15 kilograms. Scientists were therefore sceptical about this mission – a small number of instruments do not allow for serious research. However, this did not prevent the probe from determining the concentration of methane in the atmosphere and the possibility of life on Mars. He did a good job of creating a detailed map of Mars, and the optical camera took clear pictures of the celestial body all the time.
Through thorns to the stars
In the near future, India has even more grandiose plans to conquer space. Thus, in 2022 the country is going to celebrate not only 75 years of independence, but also sending the first national crew into space.
Until 2022, India’s cosmonautics still plans to study the Sun, land on the reverse side of the moon and, when the limits of our galaxy are studied, go further.
India wants to pass this stage in 2028.