India’s Dream of Becoming a Space Power has been Seriously Frustrated

The continuous failures of missile and satellite launches over the past two days will have at least these major impacts on India.

First of all, two launch failures in two days reflect that India still has certain shortcomings in missile and rocket propulsion technology, and there is still a long way to go before it can realize its dream of being a world power and a space power. Analysts pointed out that ballistic missiles and satellite launch vehicles have great technical similarities. The main difference is that ballistic missiles also need to return to the ground, so the technical requirements are higher and a return guidance and navigation system is required. The "Agni-3" ballistic missile is actually a necessary stage for India to further develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. Once successful, India's pace of realizing long-range ballistic missiles with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers will surely accelerate.

Second, India plans to send the unmanned lunar probe "Chandarayan 1" into space before 2008, and the failure of satellite launches before that is obviously a serious setback. Sharma, India's first "astronaut" who entered space on the Soviet Soyuz T11 spacecraft and stayed on the "Salyut 7" for seven days, believes that cryogenic rocket propulsion technology is "very important" to India's moon landing plan. The launch on the 10th showed that the rocket still has many flaws in its design.

Third, India’s plan to enter the international commercial satellite launch market will be frustrated. At the same time as the India-US civilian nuclear agreement was signed, the two countries have actually begun consultations on cooperation in the field of space technology. India has always been "envious" that China can obtain commercial satellite launch contracts from international markets such as the United States. It not only earns a large amount of foreign exchange, but also obtains valuable space technology data. Therefore, while India was finalizing its moon landing plan, it had quietly targeted the international commercial satellite launch market. Analysts believe that the failure of the satellite launch on the 10th showed that India's rocket propulsion technology is still unstable and therefore difficult to cope with the fierce competition in the international civil aerospace market.

Of course, from the perspective of turning bad things into good things, although the two launches failed, they accumulated useful experience for India in ballistic missile and rocket propulsion technology. Based on preliminary investigations, researchers found that both failures may have been caused by "design flaws". The main reasons were problems with the propulsion stability of the primary rocket and the connection of the multi-stage rocket. As the investigation proceeds further, I believe that India will be able to find and solve fatal technical problems.