I am going to put Kalam in orbit

The launch of India’s first satellite launch vehicle did not go as planned. Instead of travelling into the skies, the rocket crashed into the sea. APJ Abdul Kalam, the project leader, was dejected and embarrassed. He was even ready to resign. But Dr. Satish Dhawan had immense faith in his abilities. A second chance was given to him and his team. The entire country was watching this attempt with renewed interest. Would they succeed this time?

Show Notes

All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators.

We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode.

• Gopal Raj
• Jyotsna Dhawan
• The APJ Abdul Kalam paragraph was read by Mr. RC Nathan

References

• What APJ Abdul Kalam said about the launch of SLV-3 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx_ulXcRa2c

Full Transcript of Episode 11

August 10, 1979. A press conference is about to begin. APJ Abdul Kalam is pacing up and down, mentally rehearsing his answers.

Earlier that morning, India’s first satellite launch vehicle SLV-3’s maiden attempt to take off into space had failed. The rocket rose towards the skies as planned. But five minutes after it was in flight, SLV-3 crashed into the Bay of Bengal.

APJ Abdul Kalam
1979. It was a failure. It was a failu–first time I experienced my failure. How do you manage the failure FADE OUT. 

At the press conference near the launch site at Sriharikota, journalists were waiting to speak to the ISRO team, especially Kalam. Kalam was the mission director of SLV-3 and the face of the project. 

This was arguably Indian space programme’s first big failure. Previously, the Aryabhata had suffered a slight setback. But it had spent a few days in orbit before it malfunctioned. A decade of work had seen SLV spend barely 5 minutes and 15 seconds in the air. SLV’s crash meant a considerable loss to the exchequer. It was also a blow to the morale of the space programme which was up until then flying quite high. 

Kalam was disheartened. He felt he had failed as the project director.

But as the press conference began, the man who walked up to the microphone was not Kalam but ISRO’s Chairman, Dr. Satish Dhawan. 

Dhawan took responsibility for the failure. In front of the press, he shielded Kalam.

This was not a small measure. It ensured that ISRO’s first big failure did not stick to Kalam. Dhawan the leader had stepped up and Kalam, the scientist continued to persevere. 

From ATS Studio, this is Mission I-S-R-O, a Spotify original podcast about how India reached space. I’m Harsha Bhogle.

Recap

In the previous episode, I told you the story of how ISRO embarked on an incredibly challenging and ambitious project of building India’s first satellite launching vehicle. Vikram Sarabhai laid the foundation for the project in the early 1960s. It was an audacious idea to even think of building a launch vehicle back then but Sarabhai wanted India’s space programme to be a self-reliant one. He felt that if India managed to build a launch vehicle, we would not need to depend on other countries to launch our satellites and rockets.

In 1969, Sriharikota was chosen as the satellite launching station. Around the same time, it was also decided that India would build a four-stage rocket modelled on the American Scout rocket. Sarabhai had put four different scientists in-charge of the four different stages. But after his death, Dr. Dhawan chose APJ Abdul Kalam as the project director. This decision wasn’t very well received but Dhawan had faith in Kalam’s abilities as a manager. 

It took nearly a decade to build SLV-3 and India’s space scientists worked day and night to accomplish a task that up until then only developed countries had achieved. Finally, the launch day arrived. All eyes were on SLV-3 and on its nervous project director. 

Why did the project fail?

Okay, let’s go back to the launch day.

It’s the morning of August 10, 1979. 

SLV-3 is taken to the launchpad in Sriharikota and placed in a vertical position. It stands 22m above the ground and weighs about 16.9 tonnes. It is the largest rocket to leave Indian soil in history. In its cone sits the 35-kg Rohini satellite whose only goal was to measure the performance of the rocket.  

Scientists and engineers stand anxiously in the control room waiting for the countdown to begin. Kalam is in the mission director’s console. All units and teams have done their due diligence and given their approval for the launch.

Closer to 8 am, the countdown begins.

T-50 seconds

T-40 seconds

The computer in front of Kalam tells him that something is not right. Kalam takes a moment to assess the situation. 

APJ Abdul Kalam
I’m the mission director, I have to take a decision.Everything is on. Behind me there are six experts. They saw, computer data base coming in on the screen, and they see the pictures on the screen and they say there’s a problem. The problem is there’s a leakage in the system, in the control system.

The consensus of the experts in the control room is that there is sufficient fuel in the rocket to keep its thrust and reach the required position.

Now, it is the mission director’s call.

Kalam decides to bypass the computer’s warning and allows the launch to take place.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,1.

The rocket soars up towards the skies. The mood in the control room is tense.

The first stage performs perfectly and at the appropriate height, it dislodges from the rocket. Then the second stage begins. And suddenly, everything starts to go wrong. 

The rocket moves away from its designated path, starts spinning and begins its quick descent towards the sea. Within the next few seconds, the rocket, or at least what remained of it, falls into the Bay of Bengal.

APJ Abdul Kalam
Instead of putting it in the orbit … Bay of Bengal.

A disappointed Kalam turns around and makes the thumbs down gesture as an equally sombre control room stares back at him.

Kalam writes about what he felt that day in his autobiography Wings of Fire.

Narrator
The incident caused us profound disappointment. I felt a strange mix of anger and frustration. Suddenly, I felt my legs become so stiff that they ached. The problem  was not with my body; something was happening in my mind.

On his way back from the control room, Kalam was asked if he knew what went wrong with the rocket. But he was too tired to find an answer. He hadn’t slept for days and after that difficult and stressful morning, all he wanted was to sleep.

Gopalraj
In any launch vehicle, a failure always comes as a surprise. 

This is science journalist Gopalraj and the author of Reach for the Stars: The Evolution of India’s Rocket Programme.

Gopalraj
There’s so many things have to go in a launch vehicle. Everything has to go just right for it to succeed. One small thing going wrong can produce a failure. And once, once, the once the rocket lifts off from the ground, nothing is in your hands.

Kalam was woken up later that day by Dr. Brahmprakash. “What about lunch?” he asked Kalam. The rest of the day passed quietly with no talk of SLV-3.

ISRO’s scientists talk very fondly of Brahm Prakash, the man who was appointed as the head of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre after Sarabhai’s death. A Padma Shri and a Padmabhushan awardee, Brahm Prakash was Kalam’s closest confidante and guide at ISRO. 

Gopalraj
Kalam says that in his book. There’s a line in his book where he says, Brahma Prakash, was the sheet anchor, was my sheet anchor in the turbulent waters of vssc, some words to that effect. It’s true.

A day after SLV-3’s failure, Dhawan set up a review committee to find out what went wrong with the launch. They found that there was a leak in the control system of the second stage of the rocket. One of the valves failed to close properly and red fuming nitric acid which was one of the propellants had leaked away. When the time came for the second stage to perform, there was no nitric acid left to activate the thrusters. So, there was no control force to stabilise the second stage of the rocket. So, it spun out of control and fell into the sea.

After hearing the findings, Kalam was still quite restless. In his book, he writes that he stood up and told Dhawan in front of everyone that he takes responsibility for the leak. He had detected it during the final stages of the countdown but had deemed it to be insignificant. And then he said this —

Narrator
As a Mission Director, I should have put the launch on hold and saved the flight if possible. In a similar situation abroad, the Mission Director would have lost his job. I therefore take responsibility for the SLV-3 failure.

Silence reigned in the meeting, writes Kalam. Finally, Dhawan got up and said, “I am going to put Kalam in orbit!” and left the meeting.

Dhawan wasn’t someone who was dismayed or disillusioned by failures. But as most scientists who knew him will say, when ISRO missions faced  failure, Dhawan felt it was his responsibility to take ownership of it. Which is what he did at the press conference.

Jyotsna Dhawan
I think he felt very keenly that the when, when the chips are down, and when, when there’s, you know, questions that have to be answered and difficulties that are faced, it really is the leader who needs to be able to take the position and an answer for his organisation.

This is Jyotsna Dhawan, cell and developmental biologist and Dr. Satish Dhawan’s daughter.

This ability to back his team, face tough questions and persevere in the face of failures is, perhaps, among Dhawan’s greatest achievements in ISRO. The space organisation would see many more, expensive failures – but Dhawan’s words would echo: It is time to learn from our failures and move on.

At the press conference, Satish Dhawan also announced that within a year’s time, SLV-3 would be launched again. The problem that had to be fixed was a relatively small one and the team dived right back into work to prepare for the second launch.

Gopalraj says that the entire vehicle would have gone through a thorough review to ensure that it doesn’t fail again.

Gopalraj
When you have a launch vehicle failure even now, you will have a complete review of not just what happened what went wrong, but the entire launch vehicle from top to bottom … especially whenever a launch is flying for the first time and even subsequently, a lot of data from various systems are radioed back to the ground. So that you — all the experts will pour over the data look at every single piece. Look, not just what caused the failure, but no, is there anything else that went wrong that we need to look at? So there would have been a very thorough review and then okay, these are the changes need to be made.

18th July 1980 was fixed as the date for the second launch of SLV-3, just 11 months after the first launch.

All departments were gearing up for the final day. After the failure of the first launch, one would expect any organisation to be more cautious and low-key during their second attempt. Not ISRO. They had plans to telecast the launch live!

In their book, ISRO: A Personal Story, R Aravamudan and Gita Aravamudan write that Dhawan decided to get Doordarshan to do a live telecast of the launch. But Doordarshan back in 1980 did not have the capacity to do a live programme. So engineers from ISRO’s Space Applications Centre or SAC in Ahmedabad came up with a fascinating solution. They tied a transponder, that is a device that can receive signals, to a balloon and decided to float it somewhere between Sriharikota and Madras where the nearest Doordarshan office was. 

India did not yet have a communications satellite for television, and this balloon would act like one: it would receive signals from Sriharikota and bounce it towards the Doordarshan office in Madras. 

The Aravamudans write that Gummidipoondi, which was around 60 kilometres from Sriharikota, was the chosen location for the balloon. Experts from TIFR’s balloon facility at Hyderabad had been roped in for this project. Yash Pal, the head of SAC and R Aravamudan were planning to provide running commentary through the launch!

What a charming idea!

Unfortunately for them, a day before the launch, strong winds blew the balloon away from its location in Gummidipoondi. The Aravamudans write that the scientists knew that they could not do anything now. So, they decided that they would record their commentary anyway and drive and drop the recordings off in Madras as soon as they can. It would not be live, but it would be the closest to breaking news in that era.

Then came the launch day.

July 18, 1980.

The weather had not been very great the previous day. Was it going to be a better day today?

The mood in the control room was more nervous than upbeat.

Gopalraj
I mean, it would have been very demoralising to have a second failure. I mean, that would really I suspect, I mean, I think some people who were in ISRO at that time to really answer this question, but I will say the second failure would have been you know, would have raised fundamental question, is this something you can do? but with SLV-3, if you have two failures, you know what the government would have thought about it, whether to continue the support.All that comes — was open to question. 

The government had already spent 20 crores on the satellite launch vehicle programme. In today’s exchange rate, this is around 400 crores. The launch alone cost 1 crore or around Rs. 20 crore in today’s currency value. 

The stakes were quite high.

Around 4.30 that morning, a voice over the public address system in Sriharikota announced: “There is a hold!”

Dark clouds had covered the sky. ISRO had to wait to see if the skies would clear soon.

Then around 6.30 am, there was another announcement of a hold. The Aravamudans write about this in their book. A few minutes before the take-off command was going to be given, Kalam and his team realised that one of the cables connecting the rocket to the ground wasn’t detaching itself from the rocket as it was supposed to. These cables are referred to as the umbilical cables. 

For a few minutes, the team was clueless about what to do. The vehicle was armed with propellants. It wasn’t safe to go near it at this stage. Then a technician called Bapiah volunteered to climb up the launch tower and manually disconnect the cable from the rocket. Safety officials looked away for a bit as Bapiah risked his life to send SLV-3 up to the skies. He climbed a 60foot tower and gave the cable a good kick and it came off.

The final checks began. All systems were ready. Scientists at the control room were glued to their monitors. At 7.50 am, Kalam pressed a button that allowed Iris 55, a computer to take over the launch. The computer quickly scanned all the parts of the rocket including the small satellite squatting inside it. And finally, Iris 55 approved the launch. 

The countdown began.

Three minutes and 45 seconds after 8 am, there was a thunderous noise as SLV-3 took off for the skies for the second time. Kalam and his team waited with bated breath to see if all four stages worked successfully.

Stage one- check

Stage two – check

Stage three – check

Stage four – check

India’s first indigenous satellite launching vehicle had successfully placed a small 35kg Indian satellite Rohini-I in orbit. In fact, the data beamed by Rohini-I once it was in orbit showed that SLV-3 had actually over-performed, pushing the satellite into an even higher orbit than what was planned.

This was a historic moment. It was the birth of a self-reliant Indian space programme.

Standing inside the mission director’s console, Kalam was ecstatic. He writes about that moment in his book and I want to read those words out to you. I quote: “I spoke, in the midst of screeching decibels, the most important words I have ever uttered in my life, “Mission Director calling all stations. Stand by for an important announcement. All stages performed to mission requirements. The fourth stage apogee motor has given the required velocity to put Rohini satellite into orbit.” End quote.

The mood in the control room that day was euphoric. Kalam’s colleagues lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him around in a procession. 

With the success of SLV-3, India had become only the sixth country in the world to have the capability to launch its own satellites. A very, very elite club indeed.

One wonders what would have happened if we had skipped this ambitious project thinking it was too audacious.

Gopalraj
Well, the answer to that is what happens in Brazil and Pakistan. If they want to launch a satellite they have to go abroad. You should — if you don’t succeed in SLV-3, no launch vehicle is possible. You have an independent launch capability today – so much so you’re even talking of sending a human to space. why is that? Because you have an independent launch capability. Without SLV-3, you don’t have that. If you build satellites, you launch it abroad. You’re able to build your own satellites and launch it because you have an independent launch capability. And that launch capability began with SLV-3,  it is the first vital step to the simple rocket, but without it nothing else is possible.

That day, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi informed the Parliament about the success of SLV-3. A four-stage, all-solid propellant vehicle has been developed in India by Indian scientists and engineers, she told the country.

At around 2pm that afternoon, there was a press conference. Standing in front of the microphone, a beaming Dhawan said: “The hero of the day is Kalam, Abdul Kalam”.

A shy Kalam then walked to the mic and introduced the press to his team and to the prominent features of SLV-3.

The spotlight was on ISRO the whole day. Doordarshan ran a special show on SLV-3, the Films Division had even made a movie on India’s first satellite launching vehicle.

In the international press, however, there was some scepticism. Reports in the BBC and in Voice of America were wondering if India was now gearing up to enter the space and missile race.

That’s the thing, the world was still in the throes of a space race and this was a legitimate question. But both Sarabhai and Bhabha were clear right from the start that India’s space programme would only focus on the peaceful uses of outer space, on the applications of outer space and not contribute to the proliferation of missiles and weapons.

Dhawan shared these values as well and was a staunch believer in the peaceful use of space. In fact, a year before the successful launch of SLV, Dhawan said that India has the capability to build intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM), if the military requires them. However, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is developing rockets for peaceful purposes and is not collaborating with the defense department to build missiles. 

In July 1980, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi also did her bit to allay fears that India might use spin-offs from  SLV-3 for military purposes. She declared that these rumours were unwarranted and that the space programme was only focused on its peaceful uses. 

By 1983, ISRO would go on to conduct two more launches of SLV-3.

And the concerns of the international community would continue. In 1981, after one such SLV launch, the Washington Post newspaper in America carried an article with the headline: “Peaceful Indian programme has military potential.” 

Dhawan offered an interesting take when he was asked to comment on SLV’s potential as a missile. He said: Any rocket launcher can be a missile. A rocket is like a knife in the kitchen: which can be used for violence or for cutting vegetables. The rocket doesn’t know the difference. The difference lies in the hand that uses it.

Throughout the tenure of Sarabhai and Dhawan, the Indian space programme maintained a strong commitment to peaceful uses. And this wasn’t an easy task at all. If you remember, in its early days, INCOSPAR was in fact tied to the Department of Atomic Energy which was instrumental in developing the nuclear bomb.

ISRO’s scientists also regularly collaborated with the Defense Research and Development Organisation as well. Kalam’s career is a testament to this. While he was heading the SLV project, Kalam was also simultaneously working on a rocket-assisted take-off system for a military aircraft. After the second launch of SLV-3, Kalam in fact moved on from ISRO to the Defence Research and Development Laboratory and headed India’s missile programme eventually. Kalam’s successes with the Prithvi and Agni missiles gave him the moniker, Missile Man. Many ISRO scientists would follow him.

But that’s the thing. The space programme maintained strict borders even while collaborating with defence and nuclear energy. Scientists at ISRO were told very clearly that when it comes to the space programme’s own goals and projects, the idea of peace and national development will not be compromised.

Here’s what Jyotsna Dhawan has to say about her father’s views on space and peace.

Jyotsna Dhawan
You know, I think Satish was convinced of the need for nuclear capability for power generation, and the spin offs for peaceful uses. But, you know, it was very clear even then that traditional means, like coal and hydroelectric power had very unacceptable environmental impact. But he was strongly anti-war and against the militarization of these, you know, technologies, be it the nuclear fission or warheads for launch vehicles or missile capabilities. I mean, having said that, I think he was pragmatic enough to recognise that the interest that the military may have in space technology such as satellite imagery, and, you know, launch capabilities, etc – were important, but I think it was an important principle for him to engage with defence, but to keep ISRO strictly focused on civilian needs.

It was a difficult balance to strike but both Dhawan as well as his predecessor Sarabhai did it admirably. 

The launch of SLV-3 also allowed the government of India to support ISRO’s ambitions of launching larger rockets and larger satellites. In 1982, the Government cleared the proposal for the development of the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle or ASLV which could carry payloads weighing 150kgs, more than five times the payload that was carried by SLV-3. ASLV would be a five stage rocket. 

Parts of SLV-3 would find their way into the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV which could carry payloads weighing up to 3000 kgs. PSLV would even take an Indian lander to the surface of the moon. 

All of this because ISRO and its visionary leaders did not give up on their audacious ideas nor did they drop their ambitions after failures. 

There was one task however that was still a little out of reach – a task that also hadn’t been a priority for either Sarabhai or Dhawan. 

Could we send an Indian to space?

Indira Gandhi speaking to Sq. Ldr. Rakesh Sharma
Upar Se Bharat kaisa dikhta hai aapko?

Should we?