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 star and there are women in sari's,

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 space flight 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 us 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. It has to 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

Moon mission in 2008, or maybe like me, after the Mongolian Mars mission in 2013.

But where does the Indian space story really begin?

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

a public life for research.

That's historian and filmmaker, Janavie 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,

Janavie 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 were the main characters here who were 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.

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.

The 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, among 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 as a 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 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. Sarabai,

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 Minister 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 organisation is looking for a new vision,

where we could motivate the young scientists and the team members in the

show to take up the new challenges and explore the new frontiers in space.

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 Sarabai's original blueprint.

He is a very knowledgeable person and he has gone to a 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 a country like India,

which economy is growing at a very fast rate,

setting aside something like 0.5% of its GDP,

for advanced research is peanuts.

And he has given a green signal at that 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 socioeconomic 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,

the worldwide excitement surrounding the Indian Space Agency.

And especially the Gagan Yarn Human Space Flight 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 the type of grand vision which you are trying to pursue now.

Dr. Nair is a man who thinks in spans of lifetimes and sees Isaro'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, idiot.

So, nothing new about that.

Dr. Sita Somasundaram, known as Dr. Sita, was a senior scientist at Isaro 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 we 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.

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 amongst 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 would 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 teamwork. 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. Information is being chalked. It has made it very

difficult for journalists to hold it through accountable. 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. It's 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 Jarr

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 Guggenjan 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.

Vasudevan Mukant 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. 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 Vasudevan cautioned me to wait and see if these findings are ever made

public. Now the isro, the Department of Space, nor the Prime Minister's 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 isro accountable. For Vasudevan, 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

sort of figure out the many ways in which it can fail. The number of moving parts, I really don't

know how many there are. You know, 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

permutations of possibilities that arise that can lead to catastrophic failures.

For Vasudevan though, there are even bigger questions about isro 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 Gaganyan because

the government has already invested or committed to invest around rupees 20,000 crore, which is a

very large sum of money. And 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, that would be the simplest answer.

It would be the simplest answer, but 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 of the 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. And 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 Vasudeván can come to entirely different conclusions to the

scientists and entrepreneurs I've been speaking to. And while Vasudeván sees nationalistic pride as

a bad reason to prioritize spaceflight, the government says Israel is bringing unity within India

and even beyond its borders. Our approach of one or one family, one future is resonating at

cause the globe. 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 Mannin 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 evolve 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 on together. And Neil 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. In my 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

transform 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. So I think that's immeasurable and it's something

that satellites don't do. It's really seeing that there are these these jobs. It's also it do think

you know 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 and you can't just wait till everything's perfect. Conditions are

perfect to start that. Sometimes there's these limited windows and 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. 100% 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 of a 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 that Skyroot is to open space for everybody.

So basically rocket launching should be as easy as 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

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 on to 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 matured.

Just an example, the next rocket has 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 government 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 Skyrood's Infinity launch vehicle factory.

So all our rocket components majority of it are manufactured, designed and tested here.

Akhil Telang, a young engineer at Skyrood, 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,

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 when

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 and 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,

let me 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

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, you know, 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 severe supply shortages

in critical areas in terms of food shipments, fertiliser 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 a 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 has shown that it

can do all those things and it can expand those areas if it chooses to in the years to come.

Every space-faring 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 Bangalore. 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 Gugganjan

is once again on 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 Jar, and the producer was Dave Anderson.

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