Hope and fear: India's space revolution

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Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm science journalist Alok Jar.

It's 2013 and on the screen in my newsroom is a rocket towering over the launch pad.

It's carrying a probe destined for miles.

The rocket lifts off successfully and the flight controllers are celebrating.

I've spent years covering space and now I'm the science and technology editor for the economist,

so I've been in many control rooms. You've seen these rooms on TV and in films,

ranks of austere computers, rows of serious looking people. But the room on this screen

is nothing like I've seen before. There's so much colour for a start and there are women in

saris, loudly clapping and cheering. This control room is in India.

I'm amazed, despite being born in India, until this moment I hadn't even been aware

that India had a space programme. Let alone one that could send probes to Mars.

And I'm not alone. For decades, outside the country, India's space programme seems to have flown

completely under the radar. Yet now, watching this rocket arcing across the sky,

headed for Mars, it's clear that India is a true contender in space. And it's not just Mars.

Fast forward to 2026, and after a string of successful missions to the Moon,

the country is spending billions on its first human spaceflight mission.

There are even plans for a space station. But how has India reached this point seemingly

out of nowhere? And why has the government decided to prioritise space exploration?

What's really driving this space revolution? And what benefits will it bring to Indians?

This is Hope and Fear, India's space revolution.

Bangalaru, the capital of Karnataka State, has a bustling entrepreneurial energy.

Often nicknamed India's Silicon Valley, it's been at the forefront of the country's tech

industry for decades. So it feels entirely fitting that the Indian space research organisation

or ISRO, its version of NASA, is based here. So what do people in the city think of the space

programme and its big ambitions? Every success of these space launches sets a sort of a pride

amongst the people in Karnataka. For a long time, it felt like India was nowhere close to achieving

any of these when we were growing up. But now it's like, yeah, it's possible.

It would be really cool to see some Indians on an Indian-made space craft up in space.

You know, if I saw that as a child, I think I would find that really inspiring.

Yeah, it sounds really exciting and great. A bunch of Indians going to space. I mean, yeah.

I have less respect for the way that it's been politicised of late.

Is it coming from a place of curiosity and exploration, or is it coming from a place of trying

to dominate? We can't escape from this reality of war and all. So even if it's India doing or

any other country doing, it doesn't make any difference if it's going to be used like that.

I expect there to be some challenges, but I'm sure we will overcome them. It will happen.

So space is the talk of the town here. Some seeing it as an exciting new frontier.

Others concerned that Israel has become politicised or worrying about military

competition above their heads. And yet, all this attention is a relatively recent development.

Most ordinary Indians only really started following what Israel was doing after the first

Chandrayan moon mission in 2008, or maybe like me, after the Mangalayan Mars mission in 2013.

But where does the Indian space story really begin?

Welcome to Science Gallery Bengaluru, where we bring artisans, scholars together to create

a public life for research. That's historian and filmmaker Janaviy Falke. She's the director

of this massive gallery, where a recent space exhibition featured scale models of the Chandrayan

mooncraft. We are standing in our huge atrium echoey as well. I'm sure you can hear it.

And here in fact is where we have the model of the Chandrayan landing craft, which was

all shiny and golden, very attractive. And the people could actually see also a couple of our

models of the launch vehicles also displayed alongside it.

Upstairs in her very chic office, Janaviy walks me through how the space programme that we see

today, in fact started to evolve decades earlier. She takes me back to the time after independence

from Britain in 1947. And the bloody partition of India and Pakistan that followed.

The senior industrial scientific and political leadership of India wanted to find a good way to

define India as something else. So this is the scenario within which India and Indians find

science and engineering as a very good anchor for their identity. And the space programme was of

course one more big sort of programme and also a driver for industrialisation.

Who are the sort of main characters here who are driving this?

The most prominent of them was the physicist Vikram Sarapai, who today is seen as the father of

the Indian space programme. Who was he? Then how did he end up setting up the programme?

Vikram Sarapai came from a prominent industrial family in Western India in Gujarat,

incredible wealth. He gets a PhD at Cambridge in cosmic ray physics, starting just before

the Second World War and then eventually finishing it after the Second World War comes back and Sputnik

is launched. The 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite triggered the Cold War space race.

Less than four years later, the Soviet Union again set the pace by sending Yuri Gagarin into space.

All you could hear was Gagarin, Gagarin, Gagarin, as Soviet men had gone into space.

The following year, 1962, President John F. Kennedy makes an iconic speech at Rice University in Texas.

We choose to go to the moon, investigate and do the other things, not because they are easy,

but because they are hard. Sarapai sees these momentous events and decides that India also needs a

space programme. But with its own very different aims. Sarapai's vision for the space programme was

that this was science or big science for development. Aspect of space is such which I would like to

stress most is in relation to the national capability and if I were to give my own evaluation of this,

I think the benefits of these far outweigh. And so on the early programmes that Sarapai sets up

within the space programme is a fleet of satellites that would create avenues for development.

So communication for weather forecasting, communication for education, remote sensing,

so on and so forth. Sarapai was adamant that India's space programme should focus purely on

development and not on expensive displays of national prowess like sending rockets to the moon.

Sarapai died in 1971 but for the next few decades his vision held sway over Israel.

So if you see the period between say roughly the late 70s to the early 90s, what the Indian

space programme does very effectively is to work with the Europeans and the Americans to put the

pieces of the programme together which include training but also equipment in order to build at home

a robust programme. They're really consolidating their ability to reliably launch vehicles and

satellites. I find it interesting listening to you talking about this because in the 20th century

I as a space fanatic, somebody who was born in India myself had no idea that India has space

programme and yet now I know and everyone knows. I'm curious what happened to sort of turn India from

this sort of utilitarian space programme to something that the whole world now notices.

If we look at the Indian space programme in the 21st century we see a remarkable shift

towards much much more ambitious programmes. So we have the Mars mission, we have the Moon missions

and now Gaganyan which is a human space flight programme. And increasingly the way we speak about

space is where we're talking about putting people into space finding other planets to live,

finding life in space, so on and so forth. And in doing so I think India shows to herself and to

others that she feels competent and capable of accomplishing it. So it wasn't just my impression

watching from the sidelines. There really was a brand new era that started in the 2000s and 2010s.

But how did this dramatic shift happen? I'm really happy that I was able to start these

programmes in my tenure. We have created a plan. When Dr Madhava Nair first joined Israel

way back in the 1960s it was an organisation entirely in a Vikram Saravai's image.

Small earth-focused missions, each one directly contributing to India's development.

How space can be utilized for enriching the quality of life of the common man?

But by 2003 Dr Nair is chairman of Israel and about to oversee its transition into the new era.

A different vision is beginning to take hold among Israel's senior leadership.

Interplanetary, travel, planetary explorations and even human space flight.

Then in 2006 comes the crunch point.

Dr Nair must win political support from the prime minister of the time, Manmohan Singh.

It all comes down to one in person meeting. He has just 30 minutes to make his case.

I just wonder, can you tell me about that meeting with the prime minister?

What did you say to him? How did you persuade him to move from direct benefits to people in

India to a much more outward looking exploration mission for Israel?

I clearly explained to him the vision given by Dr Saravai, we have more or less completed.

And whatever we have perfected in terms of the application of space technology

for benefiting the common man, it continues. I assure prime ministers that the same thing will

not change, but we will like to use a small portion of this and take up the new missions.

Now the entire organization is looking for a new vision, where we could motivate the

end scientists and the team members in the show to take up the new challenges and explore the

new frontiers in space. So such. Dr Nair was trying to persuade the prime minister that yes,

this new version of Israel would be much more focused on exploration and discovery,

but that really this was just the next logical step in Vikram Saravai's original blueprint.

He is a very knowledgeable person and he has gone to point very sharply. Of course, he was having

a coalition ministry. He had a tough time convincing his cabinet colleagues at the time,

and they had basic questions, we don't do spend this money for providing bread and housing

for the poor people in the country like that. But then he said that country like India,

which economy is growing at a very fast rate, setting aside something like 0.5 percent

of its GDP for advanced research is peanuts and he has given a green signal at the time.

This is one point that critics of Israel have returned to again and again over the years.

The idea that India, a country with 1.4 billion people, many of them still living in poverty,

should deal with domestic socio-economic issues before turning its attention to the moon or Mars.

I'll come back to these questions later on, but Dr Nair for his part is convinced that even the

most adventurous Israel missions have clear benefits for ordinary Indians.

I can say about the moon mission which was implemented under my leadership.

There actually the objective was very clear. We used techniques like multi-special imaging

to identify various mineral resources on the surface of the moon. The ultimate idea is whether

those minerals could be exploited commercially for our benefit. And the most important part was

during this exploration, we could confirm that the presence of water on the lunar surface

without any doubt. Such findings ultimately is going to benefit the humankind.

20 years after that meeting almost, one of the reasons I'm making this documentary is

the global worldwide excitement surrounding the Indian Space Agency. And especially the

Gaganyan human spaceflight missions which will be happening in the next few years,

what would it mean to you personally when that happens? Within a couple of years we will see that

our own astronauts will be flying in our own capsule in our own rocket. And I'm really happy to say

that and also we should have our own space station by 2030, our man landing on the moon in 2035.

So that's a type of grand mission which you are trying to pursue now.

Dr. Nair is a man who thinks in spans of lifetimes and sees Israel's new era as part of a long

evolution. But what does this turn feel like for the scientists and engineers tasked with making it

all happen? The pressure is always there in space. So nothing new about that.

Dr. Sita Somersundaram, known as Dr. Sita, was a senior scientist at Israel for decades.

She ultimately rose in the ranks to oversee all science missions, including the Mars Orbiter

mission which started me off on this journey. Remember my amazement at seeing that very Indian

control room in 2013? Well, Dr. Sita was one of the most important people in that room.

For us, the Mars Orbiter mission was a very, very, very great achievement.

Ten months after the launch, the probe finally reached Mars. I asked Dr. Sita what she remembers

about that day. We were all sitting in front of our computer terminals from the chairman down

and to add to the pressure we had the prime minister sitting there in the control center.

They're all waiting to see if the probe will successfully enter Martian orbit after its long

journey. This satellite is travelling around several hundred million kilometers.

But then, when it reaches close to Mars, it has to arrive there with an accuracy of only about

50 kilometers. I mean, the accuracy had to be that small, that fine. So, this thing is

hurling through space and then the engines had to fire just to the right amount for the satellite

to get the right velocity because if it didn't get the right velocity, it would either crash land

on Mars or it would just fly by Mars. And all this had to be done in an automated mode.

Automated when I say we don't have visibility of the satellite from our ground station.

The communications are cut off because it is behind Mars.

That must have been incredibly tense.

Yes, and to add to the pressure we had to wait for two or three minutes

when there was no signal. So, those three minutes we just have to look at the screen which is not

updating anything and suddenly at the end of three minutes it starts updating the numbers and

we started getting communications from the satellite.

It has entered into orbit.

To the great joy and several processions were held all over India to celebrate this success.

History has been created today. We have died to reach out into the unknown and have achieved

the near impossible. Going back through the news coverage though,

I found that not everyone shared Prime Minister Modi's enthusiasm.

For everything else we are being told we don't have money, sanitation, health,

employment, nutrition. So, I would say sure we should go to Mars,

but we should also ensure the minimum rights of the people.

But for most Indians, these were questions for another time.

The thrill of seeing their country sitting at the top table of space powers was enough.

My conversations with Dr. Sita and Dr. Nair are helping me to see that

Israel's recent transformation is simultaneously built on decades of careful development

and a new burning ambition among scientists, engineers and politicians.

But there's another important element of Israel's success which Dr. Sita wants to highlight.

When I joined there were only a couple of women and senior roles.

There was still a thinking at that time I should say that whether women would be able to

handle this. But then many of us have demonstrated that we believe in sticking on there.

And now we have, of course, a lot of women. Women have headed projects.

We have program directors, women who have headed the geostationary program.

We are only waiting for directors of centers and chairman who could in future be a woman.

Do you think that the space agency has it helped to break down the sort of gender stereotypes

that you've described?

Definitely. I will say we have broken the gender norms, especially because space work is team work.

You have to work in a team irrespective of the gender.

And therefore they look at what you contribute to the experiment or overall mission as a whole.

And so I would like to tell that tell girls do they do your education very well and then

space is not at all the limit. You can go, you can fly.

As you'd expect from two leaders of Israel, Dr. Sita and Dr. Nair are presenting a very uplifting

picture. Taking a step back, I can see why they feel that India's new era of outward focused

space exploration is not as far from Saravai's philosophy as I'd first thought.

Even if we just take advances in gender equality, there is plenty of social development to point to.

And Dr. Sita's passion for progress of all kinds is reflected in the nation's fascination with space.

As 2026 begins, India is excitedly looking ahead towards the first test flight for the

Gaganyan human mission. Anticipation is building up for the upcoming missions like the countries

made in human space flight program which are awaited in the next few months.

All they have to do is develop the biological system and the human life support system.

Israel will first launch a robot into space to test these crucial life support systems.

This robot looks like half a human, head, torso and arms, but no legs. Israel has named it

View Mitra, which means space friend. There is a lot of support from across India,

but as the big day nears, critics are also starting to raise their voices,

and it's not just those familiar questions about India's spending priorities.

There are also concerns about a lack of transparency throughout the space program.

And then, during what should be a routine satellite launch, disaster strikes.

The rocket veers off its trajectory just as it's attempting to enter orbit.

It comes crashing down to earth along with the 16 satellites it was carrying.

And what's worse is that this is the second consecutive failure of India's flagship rocket.

The whole space program is thrown into disarray.

Is the country really on track to send people into space?

This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. The story continues in just a few minutes.

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Welcome back to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

I'm science journalist Alok Jar. And this is the second part of Hope and Fear,

India's Space Revolution.

In January, 2026, India is grappling with the failure of two consecutive launches.

16 satellites lost. Many owned by foreign countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars

up in smoke. But the real damage could be a lot deeper than that.

Israel had been riding high on a series of amazing missions to the moon and Mars.

Now, these launch failures strike at the confidence of the space community.

And it's just as the country is gearing up for its historic human spaceflight mission.

The Gaganyan test flight is delayed for several months. What's going on at Israel?

Since 2014, it's been the case that it's been very difficult, increasingly difficult,

for journalists to be able to access information related to Israel.

Vasudev and Mukhant is the science editor of the Hindu newspaper.

This has been in the form of decreasing access to people within Israel,

to interview for stories and stuff like that, as well as a sort of passive culture of secrecy

that has adapted around the organization, which I have no doubt has actually been inculcated.

I mean, there's nothing accidental about it. Not just for Indian journalists, I think for external

journalists too. We've struggled to get anyone official. So we've had the same difficulty.

And I think it's because of a shared reason, which is that we are taking a closer look and

examining things in a journalistic way. In a journalistic way, absolutely, yeah. But just as much as

they're not entertaining questions as much as they were before, to put it mildly. Another thing

that's been happening is that information is being chalked. For example, if a mission fails,

then there's going to be a failure analysis committee and then they're going to file a report.

So are those reports available? I don't think so. At the time of recording, the reports for the

May 2025 and January 2026 launch failures have not been publicly released. There's now a special

committee examining the causes of those failures. But Vasa, they haven't cautioned me to wait and see

if these findings are ever made public. Neither Israel, the Department of Space, nor the Prime

Ministers Office responded to my request for comment or an interview. Really, what this communication

thing has done is that it has made it very difficult for journalists to hold is so accountable.

For Vasa Devon, this lack of accountability is not just bad in itself. It also raises the chances

of future failures, which is especially concerning now that human spaceflight is on its way,

with all the risk that that entails. A rocket is such a complex vehicle. It's very difficult and

very complicated to figure out the many ways in which it can fail. The number of moving parts,

I really don't know how many there are. Tens of thousands, I would say, but what happens is that

the number of combinations of things that can happen is several orders of magnitude higher.

So you have these sort of permutations of possibilities that arise that can lead to catastrophic failures.

For Vasa Devon, though, there are even bigger questions about Israel's strategy.

He has sympathy for the optimistic vision of the future I've heard from Dr. Nair and others,

but he's far from convinced that human spaceflight specifically should be the next priority for India,

especially following the recent launch failures. In his view, the government hasn't clearly explained

why it believes this huge investment will benefit Indians. That is my primary concern with Gaganjan,

because the government has already invested or committed to invest around Rs 20,000 crore,

which is a very large sum of money. It is inevitably going to be the case that you get something out of it

that is deemed publicly useful, but that doesn't free one from the responsibility of justifying

why invest in X rather than Y. Prestige, I mean, is that that would be the simplest answer?

It would be the simplest answer, but I am, I'm just scared that that's the answer.

You're scared that that's the answer. I'm curious to investigate that. Why would Prestige be

the worrying answer? Because it's a simple fact that we could have

diverted those resources in all of that attention in a way that's much more productive

without having to boost some political egos. One of the main complaints

by researchers within the country is that they're not funded properly and they're not funded

on time. Even that is research that could ultimately benefit the people.

So the fact is that some things are being funded, some things are not being funded,

and there needs to be a good reason for that.

It's notoriously difficult to calculate the true costs and benefits of any space program,

especially when it comes to multi-decade projects like human spaceflight.

And it's even harder to work out the opportunity cost of all the other projects that might

not be funded as a result. That's how Vasudevan can come to entirely different conclusions

to the scientists and entrepreneurs I've been speaking to.

And while Vasudevan sees nationalistic pride as a bad reason to prioritize spaceflight,

the government says Israel is bringing unity within India and even beyond its borders.

These disagreements about funding and political motives are always part of the discussion

surrounding space agencies. Now though, in the aftermath of India's rocket failures,

the critical voices have become louder in the mix. Israel for once is on the back foot.

But then I meet someone who has a very different vantage point on everything.

You get into the rocket itself and they do all the rocket checkouts and the thing is alive

and smoking from the liquid oxygen. A Neil Mannon is a doctor and NASA astronaut.

He scheduled for his first spaceflight in July 2026 headed to the International Space Station.

I'll be up there for eight months. And like me, a Neil has Indian roots.

My family on my dad's side is from Kerala. They're from a small town there near Uttapalam,

which interestingly there is an Indian astronaut currently who is also from that small town.

Like what are the chances? What's going on in that town? What are they putting the water?

I know.

They do say Kerala is like one of the most literate states in the world.

It's a beautiful place.

And it's a beautiful place. Yeah, my parents would send me to India to live with my grandparents

over the summer. So I grew up speaking Molialam. I mean, my dad lives in India now. He lives in

New Delhi. So there's definitely that connection. So watching the space program of all of us is

also fantastic to see. As an astronaut himself, a Neil has a keen appreciation of the hurdles

the space program is clearing at each stage in its evolution. I understand some of the challenges,

aspirations, joys and wonders of it all. And so yeah, I feel a sense of pride. Definitely a

sense of admiration. Doing space, whether it's developing a rocket, flying into space yourself,

supporting a space mission is such a hard thing to do that it takes intense cooperation,

a lot of skill and intelligence. And those are things India's always had. And contributes

usually to the whole world clearly. I mean, ultimately the really hard challenges from

lunar missions to Mars missions and exploration missions. Those are challenges we're going to take

together. Anil is eager to emphasize that space work necessitates a cooperative mindset from

the international level all the way down to each individual astronaut. Working with the cosmonauts,

working with the jacks astronauts or Esa astronauts. And this goes for the Indian astronauts that I've

met. There is a selection driver maybe that brings in people who are really invested in teamwork.

When you're in a very small room in space where it's like a high-risk, high-threat environment

and you're spending 24 hours a day there, you want someone who you can talk to. So I think it

seems to be the most consistent thread that I see between all these different cultures and people.

Am I reporting for this show? I've been hearing a lot of arguments about the costs and the benefits

of human spaceflight. As someone who's going to be going to space soon, what's your sort of

perspective on this? What benefits do you think sending people into space offers for a country

versus the robotic missions or just being able to send satellites? There's the inspiration avenue

and that transformed my life. I wouldn't be a doctor and I wouldn't have helped all the people that

have helped in emergency rooms or disasters if I wasn't inspired by space because that drove me into

science and that drove me into medicine and it gave me something to work towards that I thought

was a loftier goal and I think it serves that role for a lot of people and whether they pivot

away from space to just something that's really challenging that they're very interested in,

it's going to transform other people's lives. It's kind of like a critical mass event where it triggers

other people to do positive things. I think that's immeasurable and it's something that satellites

don't do. It's really seeing that there are these jobs. It's also, it do you think at some point

it's going to be important for us to move on to other planets and to continue to grow as a

civilization and you can't just wait until everything's perfect. Conditions are perfect to start

that. Sometimes there's these limited windows in time where you can do that as a society. Now's one

of them. The concept of interplanetary colonization might seem quite futuristic but to anneal all

this feels very real and close. After all, he'll soon be living in experience that the rest of us can

only imagine. When you hit space I think it's just a shock to the sensation. About 60% of people

feel nauseous. A hundred percent of people are just kind of an awe of that feeling of falling

and then everyone starts to adjust to the newness of it as their fluid shifts around their body.

They move awkwardly and lose things but they all have this opportunity to look out the window

back at Earth and puts their life in the world and society into perspective as they're looking

out there and it's just one of those awe-inspiring moments.

An eels perspective takes us far beyond debates over cost or political motivations

because if India does manage to send a crew into space who knows how many thousands of people

might be inspired to go into careers in science? Who knows what public goods they'll create as a result?

I'm sympathetic to this view. I'll admit at heart I'm just a space enthusiast and I would

love to see Gagan Yarn succeed. So I'm following developments closely as India picks up the

pieces following the rocket failures. Isro is not letting this setback get in the way of its plans.

The chairman insists that the satellite launch failures are nothing to do with the human

spaceflight project which will proceed as planned. Former chairman Nair, the man who kicked off the

whole Gagan Yarn program in the first place, is also confident that preparations are still on track.

The rocket is ready. The capsule is getting ready. The life support system and other things are

to be validated and human rating of the rocket is required. Such activities are going on.

The Indian media is settling back into an optimistic outlook. Soon there's a new schedule for the

Gagan Yarn test flight which will now fall later in 2026. Sadly that's outside the scope of my

reporting but in the meantime there's another crucial element of the space revolution that I need

to examine because unlike the vehicles it builds, Isro is not operating in a vacuum.

My name is Pavan Chandana and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace.

In 2020 after almost 60 years as a government-only enterprise, Isro followed NASA's lead and

opened India's space sector to commercial players. Pavan is speaking to me from his headquarters

and rocket factory in Hyderabad. The core vision at Skyroot is to open space for everybody.

So basically rocket launching should be as easy as you know hopping onto an aircraft.

And what makes your rockets different to say for example SpaceX or any of the other companies

building rockets elsewhere? Like if you see SpaceX or other companies which are building much

bigger rockets they are more like a train to go to space. Now trains are more suitable for

you know large number of customers to come together and go to hub A to hub B. Our rocket is more

like a cap to go to space. The customers will book the entire rocket and launch it at whenever they

want to go to wherever they want in space. Since Isro has opened up to the private sort of launches

and other things, there seems to be a lot of innovation and activity in places like Bangalore.

And I wonder what it's like to be in the middle of all this excitement and this buzz?

It's amazing. In fact like you know just in the last three years there are over 300 startups

which has emerged you know innovating in various fields you know like building satellites data

you know different types of rockets. So I think it's a great buzzing innovation. It also forms an

ecosystem. You know for example rocket companies need more satellite companies. Satellite companies

need need more data companies. So it's a very great ecosystem which can feed onto each other and

together you know make a mark in the global space stage. For those people building space

technology companies in India. What specific advantage does the country have compared to others?

Definitely the manufacturing ecosystem available in India for space is very very mature.

Just an example the next rocket as parts supplied by 400 suppliers and vendors all within

India. This is an advanced manufacturing supply chain essentially. Very advanced manufacturing

supply chain number one. And India is the home of largest number of engineers. For example every

year 1.5 million engineers pass out of Indian engineering colleges. So it's a huge pool of talent.

Pavan explains how companies like his are feeding off and playing into the major isro projects.

So for example by 2035 India wants to build something called the Barthia Antrik station which means

the Indian space station once it's launched it requires continuous resupply of cargo and humans.

I think once the comment comments to it and builds such infrastructure I think the private companies

will play a major role and also to create a more vibrant space economy around them.

So this is our skyroods infinity launch vehicle factory. So all our rocket components majority

of it are manufactured designed and tested here. Akhil Telang a young engineer at Skyroot

Shelling is around. After you pass through the airy lobby built to look almost like a spaceship

itself you enter the gigantic factory floor. So coming to this side our right hand side we have our

liquid engine testing facility you can see we have a thermal lab here on this side on our left hand side.

Everywhere you look in this space cathedral there are gleaming high-tech machines which build or test

different rocket components. There's the CRMC motor winding machine at the front.

Akhil gestures towards a big machine winding layers of carbon composite into a casing for the rocket

boosters. Composite provides extra strength extra durability to handle the high pressure environment

inside the chamber. Standing in the middle of the cavernous space Telang describes

what being a rocket engineer means to him. When I wake up in the morning like I never feel like I'm

going to a job I'm going to an office I know that I'm going to work on something that only

many few people get an opportunity to get their hands on it feels like I'm going on an adventure.

But it's not all fun and games when those launch days come around the pressure is on.

Rocket launches as you know it's so complex that even a minute bolt here and there like a small

nut failure can cause a lot of catastrophe. So and since I'm working in the engine if let us say

it doesn't ignite after the countdown ends everybody will be looking at me.

He's part of that generation of young engineers who are driving India forward into space

and listening to him you can feel the enthusiasm bubbling over.

It should be a field that can take humanity into the next level of our evolution. In the coming

10-20 years we'll be having interplanetary missions around the globe. You can see

space ports coming up like people could be going to space restaurants space stations and all

just like a tourist like a leisure trip and all. So that's where I feel like it could go

and it should go I think because the next challenge is to make sure space is democratized.

Space is open for all. Our sky route visit reminds me that Isaro sits at the centre of a much

wider network of companies and research labs. India's space revolution would not be possible

without these connections. At this point in my reporting I feel like I finally understand

where India's space programme came from and I think I've heard all the competing narratives

about where it's going. Until human space flight or robots to the other planets they are

essential really. Dr. Blood & Bowen of Durham University is an expert on space security

advising several governments. He argues that no picture of India's space programme is complete

unless we also take into account national and global security.

It was military technologies and military interests and needs that gave us the space

age that we know and this is what I call the original sin of space flight and space technology.

If it wasn't for the nuclear weapons use of long range missiles the Soviets and the Americans

would not have spent virtually unlimited funds to get those early rockets working in the 1950s

to be able to deliver nuclear weapons to the other side of the planet.

If you think about military competition and traditionally then people think about

you know air sea and land how does space sort of fit into that in terms of strategic thinking

for countries nowadays. The areas that really matter to us today is really only up towards 40,000

kilometres altitude and beneath that altitude is where all the satellites are useful for us for

economic infrastructure and military power lies so that's where they are. In there rather than

being an empty or desolate quiet expanse it's a very crowded place. Dr. Bowen explains how every

country on earth India included is part of a military and logistical space infrastructure.

In ways that we would only really comprehend if it all came crashing down.

If we take someone manages to send malicious data into the global position

existent that the Americans run then that can be from a nuisance in terms of you're not

getting a take away pizza tonight if your courier doesn't know the actual map of where they are

towards really serious death in terms of banks can no longer process financial transactions

because they rely on the universal time that is provided by the atomic clocks on the GPS

satellites. So the financial system that would fall apart logistical systems you'll start getting

lines of cargo ships waiting to dock and that will cause ripple effects around industries around

the world with huge economic costs and perhaps a via supply shortages in critical areas in terms

of food shipments fertilizer shipments medical equipment. So space is so ubiquitous it's everywhere

we rely on satellites for everything the effects can be huge parts of the global infrastructure

being taken apart. There's a lot of activity going on in this region around earth it's another sort

of domain of national security and potentially war in the future are we looking at sort of a

modern arms race then in space. The United States China and Russia have been developing many

different kinds of anti satellite weapons or counter space systems as I sometimes called for many

many years now and rather than now being a period of an arms race whereas there wasn't before

what we should see is perhaps there's a nip tick in space weapons developments now and India is not

apart from this. Today right now India has developed regional satellite navigation systems that don't

rely on any other country then you have what is called intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance

or spy satellites and also you have the launch systems the rockets to actually put those satellites

into space and alongside that a lot of more advanced missile systems that allow for various

anti satellite systems as well so India shown that it can do all those things and it can expand

those areas if it chooses to in the years to come. Every spacefaring nation is engaged in this

sort of militarization hidden behind the headlines of human spaceflight or scientific discoveries

but Dr Bowen highlights the specific regional dynamics that are driving India down this path.

Part of this shift is the competition that India finds itself in across Asia and security

fears really with between India, Pakistan and China. China and India are nuclear weapons states

so there is that relationship there so advances in Chinese weapons technologies which

themselves rely on China's increasing space capabilities means that India also needs to keep

up to keep China in check but also India can continue to gain advantages over Pakistan's military

capabilities through its space systems. It's attention inherent in space programs across the world

that dangerous military competition goes hand in hand with some of the most impressive collective

achievements of humankind. It might be security fears that make space a priority for politicians

and lock in funding for organizations like Israel but science and discovery are also big winners

in this process. All of this makes me think back to our very first recordings with those people

on the streets of Bengaluru. Whatever threats and risks space might hold it also holds a unique

power to inspire hope. All of this that's happening it's going to create like a long term dream

for like the younger generations. Oh my god we have that capability we achieved we did something.

That is I think a big part of what being a human is about is pushing these these kinds of

frontiers and I think Indians are the best in these kind of things science stuff and astro

stuff and space stuff I think so and I think everyone should follow the Indians.

As I record these final thoughts in March 2026 the all-important test flight for Gagan Yarn

is once again on her horizon by the time you're listening to this India may be one step closer

to putting a crew into space. I'll definitely be watching. Hope and fear India's space revolution

was a reduced listening production for the documentary from the BBC World Service. It was presented

by me Alok Shah and the producer was Dave Anderson.