ISRO Chief S Somanath On Chandrayaan-3's Success
#Chandrayaan3: #ISRO’s third lunar mission lands successfully on the moon.
In conversation with the Indian space agency's Chairman S Somanath. #BQLive
In conversation with the Indian space agency's Chairman S Somanath. #BQLive
Transcript
00:00 over thousand engineers as well as scientists to ensure that this 700 crore rupees mission
00:05 is up and running. We have one of the main brains behind this and that is ISRO chairman S Somnath.
00:11 So thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure it was not an easy task and what really went through
00:16 your mind in the last four years? Were you extremely confident that you'd be putting India
00:20 on the global map? Sure we were very confident. The entire team who were working across various
00:27 centers of ISRO, they were very confident. There were many elements to this mission starting from
00:32 the rocket the LVM3. Then the Chandrayaan-2 failure analysis was going for the last two years,
00:38 four years almost. The first one year was spent on that to find out what went wrong.
00:42 Then we devised how it can be corrected for the next one year. Then the last two years we did a
00:48 lot of tests, hundreds of tests and that was coordinated across the country in so many of
00:52 ISRO centers, laboratories, institutions and a lot of models were made and tested day and night.
00:57 They would have spent on understanding what went wrong and also how to strengthen it.
01:01 So it was a process that went in and they made the flight Chandrayaan-3 as well with its new
01:07 instruments. Everything has to be done afresh. We couldn't recover anything from the moon
01:11 even if we wanted to. So that was the journey and for their hard work and also by so many people
01:19 from industry, academia contributed to it in terms of reviews, manufacturing, giving us suggestions
01:25 on how to make it better. And for them we are very grateful and thankful for their contribution.
01:30 So finally the result came today, yesterday. Yes.
01:34 So also when it comes to Chandrayaan-3, it was your responsibility to get this rocket fully
01:40 tested before it was really rocketed up. So what really went through your mind,
01:46 the kind of challenges that you really faced especially with the COVID pandemic at that time
01:50 and also Chandrayaan-2 not really going as expected?
01:53 See we faced certain difficulties during those times. The COVID did really upset a little bit
01:59 of our programs but we were still launching rockets during that time. You would have watched
02:03 that launching happen during COVID time. We devised new methods to connect remotely and work
02:08 and we could do at least two PSLE launches. But post launch, post COVID we are back on track
02:13 with our increased launching rates. This year itself we have finished seven launches and we
02:18 are continuing to have many very interesting missions coming up. And this time the GSLV Mark
02:24 3, the LVM-3 has already done two commercial missions and after that it is doing the Chandrayaan-3.
02:29 The Chandrayaan-2 was done by the same vehicle during its first operational flight. So it is an
02:36 exciting time. Now we are going to have a lot of new missions. The Aditya-L1 is in the offing,
02:40 the GDNR related test vehicle flight is going to happen. INSAT-3DS is going to be launched
02:45 and we are going to have our X-ray polarimetry satellite launch, SSLV launch like that.
02:50 Sir, also India is now first on the map when it comes to exploring the uncharted territory and
02:58 that is the South Pole. What does this really mean for India and how will the next 14 days
03:02 pan out? How crucial is it? The entire instrumentation design of the
03:07 Chandrayaan-3 is specifically for landing on the South Pole or near to the South Pole
03:12 because the possibility of getting light for only 14 days exists. But there is a huge amount of
03:17 science possibilities in the southern regions of the Chandrayaan, of the moon, sorry, compared to
03:23 what has been till now explored on the equatorial region. So they are related to the presence of
03:28 water in large quantities and also presence of minerals and other things in better numbers.
03:34 This being not so much illuminated zone, the potential of them to be retained there as compared
03:39 to the equator, there could be lost. And there are many other physical processes which scientists
03:43 were looking at on the creation of moon, its atmosphere, charged atmosphere, etc. are yet to
03:48 be investigated. So it opens up. So our five of the important instruments on board, the Vikram
03:54 Landra and the Pragyan-Rova are targeted towards those explorations.
03:58 Everybody is congratulating you all over, but what has been the biggest adulation that you've
04:03 received so far? The love of you, all of you. I think more than that I can't tell any words.
04:09 The entire nation loves us ISRO for the accomplishment and with the support of the
04:16 nation only we can progress. And I am very grateful for all your love and affection and
04:22 your prayers for making us succeed. I think it says so much about belief in our own system and
04:29 our own people and that is something that we need to celebrate. Thank you so much for this.
04:34 And interestingly, Somnath also means Lord of the Moon and I'm expecting that the next mission
04:39 of yours with the sun would be Lord of the Sun is what we all expect. Thank you so much for joining us.
04:44 [Music]
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