Budget 2011-12 for the Department of Space brings focus back on ‘bread and butter' satellite and launch projects even as it puts human flight or Mars dreams on the back seat.

The Department of Space is to get a total of Rs 6,626 crore (including a non-Plan Rs 926 crore) in Budget 2011-12. Of this, Rs 2,061 crore is for launch vehicles and related technologies.

Overall, upcoming satellites and launch vehicles have been given Rs 900 crore, including two foreign launches that have been contracted with Arianespace, an official said.

If you went by the annual schedule of the space agency ISRO, the period April 2011-March 2012 could be the busiest year yet with seven targeted launches of PSLVs (4), GSLVs (2) and hopefully the heavy-lifting GSLV MkIII.

These are expected to put a couple of GSat communication satellites and some remote-sensing satellites (IRSs) in orbit. They are needed to sustain ongoing broadcasting, communication and commercial services.

The latest DoS allocation of Rs 6,626 crore is a 36 per cent jump over revised 2010-11 estimates of Rs 4,880 crore.

Compared with last year's first estimate of Rs 5,778 crore, the Budget this year signifies a regular 15 per cent annual increase for space.

This time too, resources have put ISRO's next big leap, the Human Space Flight, on the back seat. A token Rs 98 crore has been made in the new Budget, which does not support the key ingredients of the human flight plan but just a few pre-project pilots, the official, who requested not to be named, said. Last year, it got Rs 150 crore.

Human mission to wait

Considering the “present GSLV setbacks”, ISRO will focus on the job of urgently putting INSATs and IRSs in orbit first; the human mission may continue to get such trickles “until we make a couple of successful flights,” the official said.

GSat-4 was lost during a failed launch in April 2010 and GSat-5P was lost in December 2010, upsetting ISRO's schedules badly. ISRO has to substitute them first before taking up new plans or other satellites.

In January, ISRO Chairman, Dr K.Radhakrishnan, had said the human mission would fructify six to seven years from its approval.

It would need a massive Rs 2,000-3,000 crore to take off but ISRO has been told to take it up in three phases — starting with creating life-supporting technologies.

The yet to be approved HSF proposal, made around 2009 as ISRO's next dream project after the successful 2008 lunar mission, put the cost at over Rs 12,000 crore. It plans to send two astronauts around Earth for seven days.

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