Chandrayaan 2 delay

Chandrayaan 2 delay

For Indian tech innovation to lift off, it needs to be more broad-based.

In a setback for the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), the Chandrayaan-2 Moon mission had to be called off due to a technical glitch just an hour before launch in the early hours of Monday. India’s second Moon mission has been touted as a big step for the country’s space science. It entails soft-landing a lander christened Vikram at the South Pole of the Moon, a rare feat. Further, Vikram is supposed to carry a rover named Pragyaan that would roll out on the lunar surface and conduct experiments. If this happens, India would be just the fourth country in the world to place a rover on the Moon.

Chandrayaan-2 will now undergo investigation to determine the cause of the technical glitch. And it is only after that a new launch window will be announced. While India’s space programme has made commendable strides in recent years, the aborted Moon mission this time also hints at the fact that our gains haven’t been consolidated enough. There’s no denying that the future is space and a new space race is already underway to master this domain. This is because space is no longer a distinct entity outside human lives, with a large number of on-earth functions ranging from communications to weather mapping being controlled by satellites.

Plus, there is also talk of constructing a Moon base to aid forays deeper into space. Thus, the country that is at the forefront of space science will have a strategic advantage. And if our strategic rival is China, then comparisons with the Chinese space programme are natural. Beijing successfully conducted its first manned space mission in 2003 – something India is planning to do only by 2022 – and earlier this year became the first country to land a spacecraft on the dark side of the Moon.

It is reasonable to surmise that China’s space prowess is aided by its overall scientific development on earth. This includes having a large number of quality institutes of technical education and research. This is exemplified by the fact that China had seven universities in the world’s top 200 universities according to the latest QS World University rankings. India just had three. Unless education is unfettered in India and quality made broad-based rather than confined to a handful of elite institutions, our successes in science, including space science, will be disjointed. We need to foster greater technological innovation on the ground.