Tracing history in space

HYDERABAD: India’s space journey dates back to 1962. It started with physicist-astronomer Vikram Sarabhai, who led INCOSPAR which eventually became Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). At Fifth General Assembly of Committee on Space Research held in Washington DC, Sarabhai met the French astrophysicist Jacques Blamont. Jacques was the pioneer in the French Space Research Program and established Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) in 1962. As Vikram wanted India to become a space power, Jacques decided to help. This led ISRO and its French counterpart CNES to work together.

That’s how years later in 2015, the French scientist was awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India. The first sounding rocket, VIKAS engine, several other technologies and missions were conducted with the help of and in collaboration with France. The rest as they say is history. This journey of 58 years is a historical landmark. And now, an online exhibition on Indo-French partnership in space highlights the major joint breakthroughs. Hosted by CNES, it is being showcased at the International Space Conference and Exhibition from September 15 to October 10 and will be available on the virtual stand of CNES/France. 

The Consul General of France, Dr Marjorie Vanbaelinghem says, “It is a lesser-known part of our bilateral relationship and common history. The exhibition is in itself an illustration of this bond of friendship as it is a collaboration between the Alliance Francaise Hyderabad and the CNES bureau of Bangalore.” The curator, Pranav Sharma, gives a fascinating account of the more humane side of this enterprise.” Pranav is a Hyderabad-based award-winning science communicator and astronomer, who curated India’s first interdisciplinary Space Museum in Hyderabad. 

“This exhibition is an extension of its predecessor that was hosted at WINGS-India 2020 in Hyderabad.” But how much such exhibitions add to international relations? He says, “Our international relations are bonds of human friendship. Exhibitions like these make people who are less aware of this partnership, understand and appreciate it. In a world full of uncertainties it is important to keep our friends close.”

The exhibition contains rare photographs and traces the memoirs along with vignettes of people involved. For example, on November 21 1963, an American provided Nike-Apache carried successfully a sodium ejector payload fabricated in CNES laboratory and was immediately followed by three similar sodium clouds launched at Thumba by French Centaures, a two-stage solid propellant rocket was also provided by CNES. This was the birth of the Indian space programme. Blamont personally brought sodium vapour payload from France for the first sounding rocket. And while it’s understood that this exhibition offers much to science students and researchers, what’s in it for the common man? 

Signs off Pranav, “Any important instance or venture in our national history is the history of a common man. This exhibition is also about stories of several common people who did very uncommon things, nation-building things.”