With taking up of the bold Chandrayaan-2 mission, India has come a long way since it took the first leap under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by establishing the Indian National Committee of Space Research (INCOSPAR) in 1962.
Nehru's personal family contact with Sarabhai family and a little cajoling by the father of India's atomic programme Homi Jehangir Bhabha helped Nehru rope in talented scientist Vikram Sarabhai to lead India's space programme that in that age was completely dominated by the world's two most powerful nations – USA and USSR. Sarabhai had already established the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad in 1945.
Under an ambitious Sarabhai, INCOSPAR grew and became ISRO in 1969 and in 1972, Government of India set up a Space Commission and the Department of Space (DOS), thereby bringing ISRO under the DOS.
During Sarabhai's term from 1963 to 1972, India initiated its own launch vehicle programme owing to geopolitical and economic considerations. In the 1960s–1970s, the country developed a sounding rocket programme, and by the 1980s, research had yielded the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 and the more advanced Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), complete with operational supporting infrastructure. In 1975, under another brilliant mathematician and aerospace scientist, Satish Dhawan, ISRO made its first satellite Aryabhata that was launched by the Soviet Union. During the tenure of Dhawan, the longest-serving chairman of ISRO, India entered the distinguished league of the country by launching its first indigenous satellite Rohini into the orbit by an India made launch vehicle, SLV-3. This subsequently helped ISRO develop two other rockets – the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (SPLV) series for launching satellites into polar orbits and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch vehicles (GSLV) series rockets for putting satellites into geostationary orbits.
During the term of next two chairmen, UR Rao (1984-1994) and K Kasturiranjan (1994-2003), ISRO scientists trained under the guidance of Sarabhai and Dhawan perfected the expertise in launching satellites with the help of PSLV and GSLV series rockets – an expendable launch system to enable India to launch its INSAT type satellites into the geostationary orbit and to make India less dependent on foreign rockets.
Under the guidance of the next two chairmen of ISRO — G Madhavan Nair (2003-2009) and K Radhakrishnan (2009-2014) — India crossed other thresholds of technology in perfecting the art of making indigenous cryogenic engines for the GSLV series rockets. With the launch of GSLV-D5 rocket that put GSAT-14 into orbit on January 5, 2014, India became the sixth country in the world to have this technology. This cutting-edge technology also paved the way for India to take a big leap into space frontier and propel space vehicles out of the earth's orbiting system to nearby satellite Moon and the nearest planet Mars.
