“At T-Zero, the check-out computer at the block house switched on the Stage 1 motor. And SLV-3, the epitome of the hopes and aspirations of thousands of people, soared towards the sky.” That’s how Countdown , the in-house journal of ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) described, in 1980, the crucial moments of an event which gained India a membership in an exclusive space club.
Saturday, July 18, will mark the 40th anniversary of the first successful flight of the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 (SLV-3) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). On that day in 1980, SLV-3 lifted off from Sriharikota to place the 35 kg RS-1 (Rohini satellite) in orbit. The mission’s success made India the sixth nation capable of launching satellites.
“I have been saying earlier that seven years of hard work will be proved in 436 seconds. Today this has come true. With such sincerity, enthusiasm and hard work, we can launch in future 1000-kg payloads,” a jubilant A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the SLV-3 Project Director who would go on to become the President, was quoted as saying after the mission. “What can I say at this moment of time? This is a great achievement for our nation and ISRO,” Countdown quotes the then ISRO Chairman Satish Dhawan as saying in its August 1980 issue.ISRO had kicked off the SLV project in the early 1970s. The objective was to make India capable of launching its own satellites. Earlier, satellites such as Aryabhatta and Bhaskara were launched on USSR rockets. The July 18, 1980 mission was in fact the second experimental flight of the SLV-3. The first experimental flight on August 10, 1979, was a failure.
Compared to the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) or the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), the SLV-3 was puny. It was a four-stage, solid-propellant rocket developed by the VSSC. Standing 22 metres tall, it had a lift-off weight of just 17 tonnes. To compare, the hefty GSLV Mk-III has a lift-off mass of 640 tonnes.
Great teamwork
Great teamwork contributed to the mission’s success. Kalam was Project Director and S. Srinivasan was the Deputy Project Director. Project managers of various critical systems included G. Madhavan Nair, V.P. Sandlas, M.S.R. Dev, M.K. Abdul Majeed, E.V.S. Namboodiri, N. Sundararajan, U.S. Singh, D. Sasikumar, D. Narayanamurthy, Vijaikumar, C. Soupramaniane, and P.S. Veeraraghavan.
“With this mission, India was noticed as a spacefaring nation. SLV-3 proved India’s ability to access space on its own. It also showed us we are capable of mastering the multi-disciplinary launch vehicle technologies,” says former VSSC Director S. Ramakrishnan, who was closely associated with the project.
The successful 1980 flight was followed by just two more SLV missions: On May 31, 1981, which was a “partial failure” according to ISRO, and on April 17, 1983, which was a success. The SLV and its immediate successor, the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), gave ISRO the confidence to build bigger, better launch vehicles later on.
In Thiruvananthapuram, scientists returning from Sriharikota after the mission were given a rousing welcome. In later years, the VSSC would go on to play a pivotal role in developing launch vehicles for the Indian space programme.
