Expanding Frontiers of Indo-French Space Cooperation

France has proved to be India’s reliable and stable partner in defence and strategic sectors including space technology and frontier areas of cutting edge research. In particular, both France and India attach a great deal of importance to cooperation and collaboration in all the conceivable areas of space science, technology and applications. In fact, in April 2015, India’s Department of Posts had commemorated fifty years of fruitful Indo-French space cooperation by issuing two postal stamps. That Paris has posted a Space Counsellor in Bangalore, the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as well as the nerve centre of satellite building activities,speaks volumes for the keenness of France to strengthen the space ties with India. Not surprisingly then, coinciding with the visit to India of French President Francois Hollande, ISRO and its French counterpart CNES inked a letter of intent on 25^th January to facilitate French participation in India’s next mission to Mars which would be a follow on to the first Indian interplanetary probe, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM).However, details about the proposed joint Indo-French Mars mission have not yet  been revealed. Whether it would be an orbiter mission or a lander mission with a rover would be known only after extensive discussions between ISRO and CNES.A joint statement issued following the summit meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hollande in New Delhi noted that both the leaders “welcomed the announcement of collaboration through the participation of CNES in the future space and planetary missions of ISRO”.

   The mission objective of India’s highly successful MOM launched in Nov.2013 at the head of an augmented version of the four-stage Indian space workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), is todemonstrate the technologies of building, launching and navigating an unmanned spacecraft to Mars as well as to explore the planet with five on-board scientific payloads. MOM, also known as Mangalyaan, was successfully placed into an elliptical orbit around the Red Planet in Sep 2014, making India the fourth country in the world to accomplish this feat. Moreover, ISRO created a sort of history by pulling off the feat of successfully nudging MOM into its intended orbit around Mars in the very first attempt. As things stand now, the follow-on Indo-French Mars mission is not likely to take off before 2018.

On another front, ISRO and CNEShave agreed to host the French built ARGOS-4 data collection platform in the Oceansat-3 Indian ocean research satellite expected to be launched by PSLV sometime during 2018.Oceansat-3 is a follow-on mission to Oceansat-2 launched in Sep2009.Oceansat-2 launched by PSLV was meant to monitor surface winds and ocean surface strata, observe chlorophyll concentrations, track phytoplankton blooms and study aerosols ad suspended sediments in oceanic bodies. As envisaged now, Oceansat-3 will provide the continuity of services for oceanographic research.

Further, ISRO and CNES have agreed for implementation agreement for future earth observation spacecraft mission with a thermal infrared payload. Both the countries have expressed the hope that these missions will contribute significantly to the monitoring of environment, weather, water bodies as well as coastal zones and further strengthen the partnership between the two countries.In addition,India and France have also agreed to explore the possibility of building and launching a dedicated climate research satellite to monitor the dynamics of extreme climate events.

  It may be recalled that ISRO and CNES have successfully realized two satellite missions for the study of tropical atmosphere and oceanic dynamics. MeghaTropiques, the joint Indo-French satellite mission designed for understanding the life-cycle of convective systems and their role in associated energy moisture budget in the tropical regions, was launched by means of PSLV in Oct 2011. On the other hand, the Indo-French SARAL (Satellite for ARGOS and ALTIKA) mission, meant for oceanographic studies, was launched at the head of PSLV in Feb2013. SARAL data products have proved to be quite useful for applications in marine meteorology and sea-state forecasting, operational oceanography, seasonal forecasting, climate monitoring, earth systems and climate research.

Incidentally, the liquid fuel-driven Vikas engine powering the second and fourth stages of India’s trustworthy space vehicle,PSLV is a modified version of the French Viking engine, the technology of which was made available to ISRO in 1970s. PSLV, which has notched up the distinction of being a cost-effective and reliable vehicle for delivering payloads into near-earth and middle-earth orbits on commercial terms, had also launched French earth observation satellites—Spot-6 in Sep 2012 and Spot-7 in Jun 2014—under a commercial contract bagged by the Bangalore-based Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian space programme. Identical in capability and configuration, Spot-6 and 7 earth observation satellites, with highly responsive sensors that enhance acquisition capacity and simplify data acquisition, constitute an earth observation constellation.

Significantly, the PSLV has so far launched a total of 57 satellites of international customers on commercial terms.  Global customers have rated PSLV as one of the most reliable launch vehicles with a superb track record of delivering multiple satellite payloads into the precise, intended orbit. PSLV, which has suffered a solitary partial failure, has launched 90 plus satellites through thirty-two successful flights spanning the period from 1994 to 2016. In 2008, PSLV created a record for most number of satellites placed in orbit in one go by launching as many as ten satellites.

 Incidentally, India, after holding discussions with the French engine major Snecmain the late 1980s  for the acquisition of  cryogenic propulsion technology  for the three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle(GSLV) decided, against sealing the deal on account of the “high cost”. And subsequently, Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) turned to the Russian space outfit Glavkosmos for the transfer of cryogenic engine technology. However,the Indo-Russian deal turned out to be troublesome and problematic right from the word go. To begin with, geo-political factors came into play to cast a shadow on the ISRO-Glavkosmos agreement for cryogenic engine technology. USA, citing the provisions of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR),coerced a politically-emaciated and economically bankrupt Russia,which emerged from the disintegration of once mighty Communist  empire, into going back on its commitment of transferring the cryogenic engine technology to India.

Ultimately, the Indo-Russian deal was diluted to the supply of seven  Russian cryogenic engine stages to ISRO sans technology transfer. This was a face saving exercise. However, the performance of these Russian cryogenic engine stages used in the GSLV flights were not upto expectations. For, in comparison with the cryogenic engine technology offered by France, the Russian cryogenic propulsion system is considered somewhat complicated. That ISRO has been able to build a home-grown cryogenic engine for its GSLV, based on the experience it acquired from the use of Russian cryogenic engine stages in GSLV flights, speaks volumes for the innovativeness and ingenuity of Indian space scientists and engineers.

     As many as 19 Indian satellites of INSAT/GSAT family have been successfully launched by the European space transportation company, Arianespace, in which France holds a major stake. According to Arianespace sources, the favoured relationship between Arianespace and  ISRO reflects the expanding collaboration in the space sector between India and France. 

As it is, the first Indo-French space cooperation was signed in May1964 covering licence to produce Sud-Aviation’s Belier and Centaure sounding rockets in India. This agreement covered the transfer of solid propulsion technology. As many as 50 French-origin sounding rockets have been launched from the Thiruvananthapuram-based Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station(TERLS) that served as the nucleus for the growth and evolution of the Indian space program. TERLS which was set up in 1962 was dedicated to the United Nations(UN) in 1968. It was in Nov1963 that TERLS took off with the launch of a 9-kgsounding rocket.

 On another front,the Franco-German Symphonie communications satellite which was made available to India for the duration of two years,between 1977 and 1979, had helped ISRO carry out system tests for the validation of the concept of Indian domestic satellite system INSAT. Under project STEP (Satellite Telecommunications Experiments Project), a series of experiments using Symphonie were carried out. Today INSAT has emerged as one of the largest constellations of communications satellites in the Asia Pacific region.

Views expressed by the Author are personal.