Science matters

The year gone by saw many science and technology projects in the strategic sector come to fruition, some in redemption of earlier failures, like the Agni-III and a GSLV flight. They augur well for an even more successful 2008, writes Sridhar K Chari

The year 2007 has been good for strategic science and technology projects in India. It has been the norm for such programmes, with a few honourable exceptions, to be plagued by cost and time overruns, not to mention, even more distressingly, failure to achieve required performance parameters. The Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ are clearly in this category.

We seem to have done much better in space and missile technologies, however, and 2007 has produced an impressive bouquet of successes (See box). The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), of course, has an excellent track record. One would have in any case expected them to have kept up the good work in 2007, shrugging off that one big GSLV failure in 2006. Hearteningly, though, they were joined in the year by DRDO with its missile programmes.

Missiles are technologically less challenging, comparatively speaking, than complex, man-carrying platforms like military aircraft and tanks. And ISRO’s contributions to DRDO in its missile programmes, played down for reasons related to international technology denial regimes, must be taken to be significant.

But it would be too uncharitable to deny the many hard-working scientists of DRDO their due credit, and their happiness in these projects would be shared by all those concerned about India’s indigenous capabilities.

So what do we have to look ahead to in 2008? Some are clearly going to be building on 2007’s successes, and with DRDO talking about the capability to provide a "missile shield" for cities and strategic installations, further tests of the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile, sometime in April, will be keenly watched.

Interceptor missiles are intrinsically more challenging than a ‘point A to point B’ attack missile, which "only" has to carry a warhead and detonate it on a target. The guidance technologies, the sensors, its manoeuvrability at high speeds, and the capability to lock on and home in on another fast flying missile, can all pose great challenges.

Apart from the scientists in the missile labs down south in Hyderabad, the men and women at the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) in Chandigarh would have put in some hard work. It is at TBRL that the finer points of how the "kill vehicle", in this case, the AAD, would have proceeded towards the target missile, with the sole purpose of smashing into it in mid-flight, thus preventing it from reaching its target, would have been fine-tuned.

DRDO had first tested, in December 2006, a missile which tracked and intercepted a dummy missile in the "exo-atmosphere" – in this case about 50 kilometres above the earth. And a year later, DRDO carried out a couple of more tests. One targeted an electronic simulation of an in-coming missile.

For the other test, DRDO launched a Prithvi missile over the Bay of Bengal. The Prithvi was playing the role of the enemy missile. Imagine it zooming in, at speeds well over the speed of sound, inexorably towards its target. A true enemy missile would not be fired harmlessly over water. It would make straight for a city, an armed forces base, an atomic installation, and the like.

DRDO fires the AAD-02, and – success! Moving at hypersonic speeds, the AAD hit the missile, destroying it.

Of course, we are still a long way from claiming a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system. And considering that India’s threats are from its neighbours, it will not take very long for a missile fired from there to reach its target. Even if our tracking, targeting and kill vehicle technologies are perfect, reaction times are frighteningly small. And the cost of an error can be as high as the cost of any delays. Moreover, "perfection" has eluded other such systems, like the US Patriot. Which is why BMD experts the world over, think even in terms of destruction of the enemy missile at or near launch point.

Still, this is a worthy effort, and DRDO in April would use more than one missile to target an incoming hostile missile. These tests will further raise its reliability. And perfection may not be needed. If a large number of AAD "batteries" are deployed around major cities and strategic installations, it raises the costs of a contemplated attack by an enemy. The enemy is no longer sure how many missiles he has to send out, how many will succeed, and how quickly and where India will retaliate. Deterrence is thus enhanced. And in offensive terms, it enlarges our scope of action during a crisis, like the Kargil war.

One of the other things the DRDO did is to fire a Russian R-73 close combat air-to-air missile from the LCA ‘Tejas.’ The Tejas programme, of course, is just plodding along, and though several prototypes are flying, weapons integration has been delayed, and there are serious issues with the powerplant (read engine). The successful firing of the R-73 thus indicates some progress with weapons integration.

In 2008, the Tejas should hopefully make further progress. DRDO will have to decide about the engine – the Kaveri, which must be considered DRDO’s shame, appears nowhere near ready. The Tejas is currently flying with an American engine, the GE-404, and while the Americans have restored support after the sanctions hiatus, the programme remains very dependent on external support. A more powerful GE engine is now being looked at, sources suggest, in order to meet Air Staff Requirements.

Moreover, weapons integration is meaningless without the ability to find the enemy in the air, and the LCA’s radar is another sticking point. Even the AAD success, we must give ourselves a sobering reminder, would not have been possible without the Israeli Green Pine radar, which is what we are reportedly using to pick the hostile missile out of space.

Another important DRDO success in 2007 was the Agni-III. The first test of this newly designed Agni, aimed at targets situated 3500 kilometres away, had failed in 2006. But DRDL came roaring back in April, with the two-stage missile notching up a success. More tests will be needed, and we are now also talking about Agni-IV. We might see some progress on this front, this year, perhaps even a test.

ISRO has been on a roll. It opened its account in 2007 with a successful flight of its "workhorse", the polar satellite vehicle launcher, the PSLV-C7. Later in the year, with the C-8, ISRO had its first fully "commercial" flight, putting an Italian satellite into orbit.

Incidentally, the C-7 carried a Space Capsule Recovery Experiment – 1 (SRE-1) satellite, which was made to "re-enter" the atmosphere, and then recovered after a parachute-aided splash down in the Bay of Bengal. The idea was to test some technologies towards eventually developing – an ambitious task — a reusable launch vehicle like the US Challenger spacecraft.

In September, it launched the GSLV F-04, carrying an INSAT satellite. A lot was riding on this flight, as the previous GSLV F-02 had failed, and its success put ISRO’s launch vehicle programmes back on track. While the PSLV puts small satellites in polar sun-synchronous orbit about 900 kilometres above the earth, the GSLV’s mammoth task is to put heavier satellites in geo-synchronous orbit, some 36,000 kilometres above the earth.

There are some key GSLV flights to look forward to in 2008, and hopefully they will not be delayed beyond the year. One of them is the first flight of the GSLV Mark III. Described as simply beautiful in its simple but powerful configuration, the Mark III’s task is to carry very heavy satellites, say 4000 kg, into orbit.

Equally important will be the flight of the GSLV-D3, the Mark II, for one of the stages will be powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine. The GSLV flights, up to now, have employed Russian cryogenic engines. The indigenous engine underwent a landmark full duration test on the ground in November 2007. The Mark III will carry a larger cryogenic stage with more fuel.

But what will perhaps truly catch the imagination of the people at large is ISRO’s moon mission, the Chandrayaan -1. Chandrayaan will not actually land on the moon. To be launched by a PSLV, the satellite will orbit the moon from very close quarters. On board will be several scientific instruments, including a couple of American ones in collaboration with NASA, and these will carry out several tests.

While we celebrate these successes, there are serious worries on a very fundamental front – education. Science, as distinguished from applied science, engineering and technology, is languishing in our schools and universities. The first ‘India Science Report’ in 2005 has laid bare the malaise in detail, and it is unfortunate that we are yet to come to grips with it.

In fact, the simple fact that we are still so import-dependent in strategic and energy sectors, should serve to spur not just officialdom, but our young men and women, into action. India can never be a true power, if we have to buy everything we need from abroad.

The National Knowledge Commission, in one of its many recommendations towards creating a "knowledge society", has talked about creating the infrastructure where India can produce work "worthy of a Nobel prize."

This can only happen if India’s citizens demand it with an urgency borne of near desperation. For all our successes stand on very shaky foundations, and this is not a situation that can be sustained indefinitely, whatever the mitigating effects of globalisation. Hopefully, 2008 will see some progress on this front as well.

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