As India prepares for its Gaganyaan Mission, ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayanan watched glued to the screen the safe return of Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams from the International Space Station back to Earth.
Dr Narayanan said he was “100 per cent confident” Ms Williams would return safely.
“I was quite confident… when the system got undocked from the ISS and started moving by operating towards the Earth by operating the thrusters. In fact, they operated the thrusters four times. I was 100 per cent confident this will be a very grand successful mission and madam will be landing safely,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief told NDTV.
He said ISRO would be open for support if Ms Williams can contribute to India’s astronaut programme.
“In fact, ISRO is an organisation open for support,” Dr Narayanan said. “But you know, our honourable Prime Minister Modi ji, he is the minister for the Indian space programme. We will have a discussion with him. And he has got a different vision for the country… he will decide,” Dr Narayanan said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already invited Ms Williams to India in a personal letter he sent to her.
“I will be happy to really have an interaction and whatever support is there, as chairman of ISRO and secretary of Department of Space, I will be very happy to get whatever wisdom is there. I will be happy to do that. But then there are official protocols. I will go through whatever guidance the Prime Minister gives and follow that,” the ISRO Chairman said.
He said there are learnings for ISRO from this nine-month mission of the US’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
“We have to learn two lessons from this. One is that this type of mission is a technologically advanced and challenging mission. In the space programme, there is either success or failure, no 95 per cent success. For example, if somebody is trying to cross a well and says he crossed with 90 per cent success, what does that mean? It is simply falling into the well,” Dr Narayanan told NDTV.
On what message he would like to give to young people in the country, the ISRO chief said confidence is the key ingredient to success.
“I want to tell the youth of this country only one thing, be confident. One should take a calculated risk in the profession, in life. Without that, nobody can succeed. There is a saying, ships are safe in the harbour, but they are not meant for that. If you have to succeed in life, if you have to contribute significantly, you have to take calculated risk,” he said.
The ISRO chief said he was looking at the entire mission [of bringing Ms Williams back] because India is also on the way to executing a similar mission.
“I know what is the type of complexity involved, the end-to-end mission. There is a thermal system and when it enters, there will be heat generation and the entire system has to work. I know the module is very nicely designed, but this type of mission always has a little bit of risk. That I think we have to openly accept,” Dr Narayanan said.
Ms Williams’ eight-day journey in space stretched to nine months due to a glitch in their Boeing spacecraft. She is a former US Navy Captain.
