ABSTRACT
There are several civilian applications of space technology that have their origins in the strategic and military domains. The Soviet Union, the US, China and European nations have followed this path to build space capabilities. However, in the case of India, it was guided by the vision of the founding father of its space programme, Dr Vikram Sarabhai, and adopted a contrarian approach. 1 It chose to leverage space to address the social problems of society and took initiatives to develop space technology for the benefit of the nation and the common man. Beginning with a modest approach and even carrying the nose cone of the rockets on bicycles, the Indian space programme has come a long way. India has been able to reach the moon in a short span of four decades. Today, it has a robust and self-reliant space infrastructure and possesses technological capability to design and build satellites for providing space services and to launch them using indigenously designed and developed launch vehicles.
