Ever Upwards: ISRO in Images

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The Indian space programme has the unique distinction of being born in a place of worship: the St. Mary Magdalene Church in Thumba, a fishing hamlet near Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. From those humble beginnings in 1963, the national space programme grew under the visionary guidance of Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan to become a technological giant, known today as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Sarabhai created ISRO in 1969.

This year, 2019, marks the birth centenary of Sarabhai and the 50th anniversary of ISRO. This book celebrates the double anniversary through over 370 photographs, lovingly curated by the authors from a collection of over 2000. Some of them have never been seen before by the public, while others are eye-catchingly beautiful.

The authors have worked on this book - their tribute to Vikram Sarabhai-for over five years, always keeping abreast with the latest developments in ISRO: from its birth in 1963 to Chandrayaan-2, whose launch is imminent.

This is the story of ISRO told through images. The pictures speak for themselves!

PV Manoranjan Rao obtained his PhD from Calcutta University and completed his post-doc work at Nagoya University, Japan. A space physicist, Rao has been writing on the history of ISRO since his retirement as Group Director from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in 1996. Till date, he has written/edited four books on the subject. His book, A Brief History of Rocketry in ISRO, co-authored with P Radhakrishnan, won the 2014 Engineering Sciences Book Award of the International Academy of Astronautics.

BN Suresh, a leading authority on launch vehicle technology, was formerly Director of VSSC and a member of the Space Commission. His most recent publication, Integrated Design of Space Transportation System, co-authored with K Sivan, Chairman of ISRO, is an authoritative account of the subject. Currently, he is Chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram and Honorary Distinguished Professor at ISRO Headquarters, Bengaluru. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan (2013) by the Government of India for his seminal contributions to ISRO.

VP Balagangadharan, a former scientist in VSSC, is a specialist in ISRO's outreach activities and in Intellectual Property Rights. He works closely with PV Manoranjan Rao in documenting the history of ISRO. Till date, he has written/edited four books, including one on rockets for children and two in Malayalam on the history of ISRO.

I am extremely delighted to write the foreword for the coffee table Lbook Ever Upwards: ISRO in images. In chronicling success stories, it is important to connect various milestone events with the people. behind them and their thought process. This book beautifully captures the ISRO story and the people behind it through a series of visually stunning images.

Dr Vikram Sarabhai was a visionary leader who foresaw the role of space science and technology in the development of India and played a crucial role in convincing the Government to initiate Space Research Programmes in India. If Dr Vikram Sarabhai sowed the seeds of Space Research in India, Prof. Satish Dhawan laid down the organizational framework for ISRO, which has been responsible for the continued success of the Indian Space Programme.

I have had a very long association with the authors, Dr PV Manoranjan Rao, Dr BN Suresh and Sri VP Balagangadharan, during my career in ISRO and they have been working on this book for the last five years. I am glad that the book is slated for release in August 2019, which marks the birth centenary of the father of the Indian Space Programme - Dr Vikram A Sarabhai.

Some of the pictures are an absolute treat for the eyes. After all, Space Technology is known for its spectacle of awesome visuals, including thrilling rocket lift-offs that shake the earth for miles. Enjoy the show!

I recommend this book to all my compatriots on whose support ISRO thrives.

I once again thank the authors for all the trouble they have taken in creating this book of images. I wish the book all success. It deserves pan-Indian readership.

In our earlier compendium, From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet, published by Harper Collins and released in 2015, we had promised our readers that we would be out a complement to the compendium. This coffee table book is the result. We had sourced thousands of photographs, from which we have selected the ones that appear in this book.

Chapter 1, titled "The Sarabhai Decade' is all about the man who launched the Indian space programme in the early 1960s. It has about 50 photographs, some of which have never been seen by the current generation of people either inside or outside ISRO. These pictures speak for themselves. Looking at them, one finds it hard to believe that Sarabhai left us half a century ago. Many of the pioneers in these pictures are no longer with us, but their images remind us of their seminal contributions to our space programme.

When Vikram Sarabhai suddenly died in his sleep, at the peak of his creative best, he was 52. In an inspired move, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi chose Satish Dhawan, Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to succeed Sarabhai. (Before Dhawan took over, for a brief period, MGK Menon was the Chairman of ISRO). When Dhawan took charge of the space programme, he too was 52. This coincidence in age seems, in retrospect, strangely appropriate because Dhawan started where Sarabhai had left-off. While Sarabhai was a visionary scientist-cum-institution builder, Dhawan was a practical engineer who provided flesh and blood to the dreams of Sarabhai. It was Dhawan who created the Department of Space (DOS) and brought ISRO under its fold. More importantly, he provided the organisational structure to our space programme, which still drives ISRO today. Dhawan transformed the fledgling ISRO of Sarabhai into a technological giant of our country. He made ISRO/DOS an exemplar of excellence in a Government set-up. Politicians may fight fiercely with each other over their differing ideologies, but they are all united in supporting ISRO. For all this, we must be grateful to Dhawan. Chapter 2, titled "The Dhawan Era' is all about the man known as the Gentle Colossus.

If there is one area in which technologically advanced countries are averse to collaborating with others, it is launch vehicles; that is, rockets capable of orbiting satellites. This is because these rockets have dual use: civilian and military. Chapter 3 is about the rockets of ISRO. By successfully launching SLV-3 in 1980, ISRO broke the monopoly of a five-member elite club of nations guarding this technology! The Project Director of SLV-3, APJ Abdul Kalam, later became the President of India, a rare distinction for a technologist. The success of SLV-3 was followed by two successive failures of the ASLV, plunging ISRO into gloom. But the lessons learned from these failures laid the foundation for ISRO's operational launch vehicles, starting from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and now, GSLV Mk III, which is ISRO's most powerful rocket. GSLV Mk III is also the vehicle that is expected to take people into space (Gaganyaan). Nothing in space technology can come close to the spectacle of a powerful rocket shooting up, defying gravity. This chapter has some of those arresting images.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages