The Hindu Business Line : When economics orbits space missions

The time is right for India to undertake a manned mission. Thus suggested the 80-odd scientists who congregated in Bangalore in the first week of November 2006. Mentioning this, www.isro.org, the site of the Indian Space Research Organisation, wraps up a list of `major events during 2006.'

The year saw many pluses such as `the successful ground testing of indigenous cryogenic stage for GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle),' `demonstration of SCRAMJET (Supersonic Combustion Ramjet),' `winning of two contracts for building communication satellites for European customers,' and `the establishment of IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System).'

More details emerged about Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to the moon, scheduled for early 2008. One learns that the primary Indian scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan-1 will include `Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI), High-Energy X-ray spectrometer (HEX), Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) and Moon Impact Probe (MIP).' Also on board will be `two US-NASA instruments,' `three instruments from the European Space Agency and one from Bulgaria.'

INSAT-4C

A setback, though, that the Indian space programme suffered was the failure of GSLV-F02 mission, in July last year. It was carrying the communication satellite, Indian National Satellite (INSAT) 4C.

Weighing 2,168 kg, INSAT-4C was the heaviest satellite launched by GSLV, bound for `second operational flight.' Earlier launches were of `1,530 kg GSAT-1 and 1,825 kg GSAT-2 satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbits (GTO)' in 2001 and 2003 respectively, and the 1,950 kg EDUSAT, a satellite dedicated for education.

INSAT-4C carried a dozen high-power Ku-band transponders designed to provide DTH (Direct-To-Home) television services, facilitate VPT (Video Picture Transmission) and DSNG (Digital Satellite News Gathering) as well as to serve NIC (National Informatics Centre) for its VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) connectivity, as a July 5 press release of ISRO informed.

The satellite was designed for a mission life of ten years, but its life proved to be too short.

For, after 45 seconds of launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, about 80 km north of Chennai, `the vehicle started deviating significantly from its nominal flight path resulting in the vehicle experiencing severe aerodynamic loads'... And it subsequently broke up after about 65 seconds, as ISRO painfully recounts.

"Among the different components of a nation's space programme, the launch vehicle programme is the most difficult one to evaluate in terms of costs and benefits," writes U. Sankar in The Economics of India's Space Programme: An Exploratory Analysis, from Oxford (www.oup.com). The difficulty arises because of "the nexus between military and civil programmes, goals such as dominance in space and national prestige, and various distortions in the launch market," notes the author.

Billed as `the first ever economic analysis of the space programme in India', the book begins from the beginning, that is February 1962, when the DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) created INCOSPAR (the Indian National Committee for Space Research) under the Chairmanship of Vikram Sarabhai. The same year, work began on TERLS (Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station).

Only less than five years earlier, the space era had begun in October 1957, `when the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) launched its satellite Sputnik using its rocket Old Number Seven from Baikonur Cosmodrome.'

Sounding rockets and SLVs

By November 1967, India could develop sounding rockets, beginning with Rohini RH-75, which was 75 mm in diameter, one foot long, and weighed 7.2 kg. For starters, Wikipedia explains that a sounding rocket, a.k.a. research rocket, is "an instrument-carrying sub-orbital rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its flight." The origin of the term comes from the nautical term to take a sounding, meaning to take a measurement, one learns.

"While a sounding rocket's task is only to keep rising vertically till its propellants are exhausted, a launch vehicle has to inject a satellite at the right altitude, orientation, and velocity to reach the desired orbit," explains Sankar in a chapter on `the launch vehicle programme.' The first experimental SLV, planned in 1963, consisted of `44 major sub-systems, nearly 7,000 electrical components, a million soldered joints, 25 km of wiring and 40,000 fasteners.' In this, ISRO had involved many organisations such as `the National Aerospace Laboratories, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Walchandnagar Industries, and Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL).'

By the 1980s, we had the first operational class of vehicle, the PSLV or the polar SLV, aimed at `a capacity to launch IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) class 1,000 kg satellites into a 900 km polar sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).' For this, ISRO acquired Viking technology from CNES (Centre National Etudes Spatiales), a French space agency.

Closer home, many organisations worked with on the programme. "Godrej, Machine Tools Aids & Reconditioning, and Kerala Hitech Industries were involved in the fabrication. For maraging steel there was partnership between the VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre), Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, and Rourkela Steel Plant." Using maraging steel, HAL, L&T and Walchandnagar made motor cases. VSSC developed the technology for the development of HTPB (hydoxyl terminated polybutadine) and transferred it to NOCIL (National Organic Chemical Industries Ltd) for production. And there were more: IPCL (Indian Petrochemicals Ltd — later HOCL or Hindustan Organic Chemicals Ltd) for liquid propellants and nitrogen tetroxide, Andhra Sugar for UDMH (unsymmetrical di-methyl hydrazine), and Bharat Electronics for precision coherent monopulse C-band radar.

Metrics, insurance and costs

A simple metric such as cost per pound/kg can be used for comparing the trends in launch vehicle costs, suggests Sankar because "information on the time pattern of capital expenditures, annual operation expenses, and the cost of capital for launch vehicles programmes are not available in the public domain."

Interestingly, there are special insurance products for the space market. For instance, there can be insurance of the spacecraft along with the launch services only for the launch phase, or for `the post-launch varying from six months to the expected life of the spacecraft.' Rates vary with the success record. "For a proven launch vehicle with 8-10 successive launches, the launch insurance premium until 2000 was in the range of 8-12 per cent of the spacecraft and launch services cost. For an unproven launch vehicle, the premium was 12 per cent or more."

How do our costs compare? Lower, compared to the costs of well-established launchers in the US and Europe. This, despite the number of flights per year being low, at around two, as against eight or more in the West. "By increasing the number of flights per year the development cost per flight can be lowered. Expansion of the domestic market is one alternative, while another alternative is the export option," says Sankar. For a thrust in export, we may have to strike mutually beneficial deals with established launchers, and also `invest more in developing launch vehicles with capability to GTO of 4 tonnes or more, and adopt strategies for cost reductions,' he suggests.

On the revenue side, it helps to know that ISRO didn't charge a price for the services it made available to public sector agencies such as AIR (All India Radio), Doordarshan, and IMD (Indian Meteorological Department). ISRO's revenues are mainly from `the lease of eleven INSAT-2E transponders to INTELSAT, leases of transponders to private TV companies, and VSAT service providers, and commercial services of Antrix Corporation.'

With respect to services provided to the public sector, it is better to use imputed costs so that the user agencies know the costs to society of getting the services, urges Sankar. He calls for the adoption of corporate accounting framework to distinguish between capital and current spends. Since many institutions are involved in the supply chain of ISRO, it is necessary to tackle the last mile problem, insists the author. A `space' book that you can make space for, at the start of the New Year.

In the case of INSAT-3A, 3B and 3C, the insurance package, at Rs 228 crore accounted for more than 14 per cent of `the combined spacecraft and launch service costs of Rs 1,616 crore.' ISRO is said to have received about Rs 240 crore for INSAT-2D that died in orbit, as per a report on www.indiadaily.org dated July 15, 2006. INSTAT-4C had cost Rs 256 crore, broken into the launch vehicle (160 crore) and the satellite (96 crore). The launch was not insured, presumably because of the huge premium outlay of Rs 55 crore annually.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

More Stories on : Books | E-Dimension | Science & Technology

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Oxford University's animal research lab — Animal-rights activists want humane technologies

India-Japan ties — Moving to the next level

Revitalising the farm sector

Mission for 2007 — Defusing long ignored time-bombs

The corruption-efficiency trade-off

When economics orbits space missions

PocketPlus

Power cuts