‘Planning Moon journey was exciting’

Pune: “I was posted in America as resident representative of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at Colorado Space Light Centre, when the US was busy in satellite television experiments. When man first landed on the Moon, back here in India the entire atmosphere was full of excitement,” said Pramod Kale, former director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO.

He said, “I got the opportunity to talk to people involved in the experiment as I was stationed in the US. I spoke about this experience here at ISRO, when Apollo 11 was being carried out. We felt we needed to do something for science.

“Since the Moon is the nearest celestial body to Earth, we too planned the mission,” he said. 

“Another incident I remember vividly was the visit of Neil Armstrong to India. We have two rocks from the Moon, one at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) at Ahmedabad and another at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

“Devendra Lal, later director at PRL said they needed to study the rock. Accordingly, we studied it and Chandrayaan I was planned,” he said. 

“To catch signals from Chandrayaan, we needed a good ground station,” he added.

“Instead of depending on other countries, we decided to build it in India. For that I was called up and was chairman of the design committee,” Kale said. 

“After the team was formed, we reviewed the structure and antenna. It had a diameter of 32 km. It came up at Bayalu near Bangalore. The ISRO deep space network thus came up,” he said.

This centre is at par with other space ground centres. “We had many meetings to review it and to give suggestions and objections. It was a memorable, adventurous and  full of excitement event. We were on the success route,” he said. 

“I would like to conclude with the lines I heard: If you reach for the stars, you might not actually get one, but you won’t come with a fistful of mud either,” he signed off.