ISRO Chief V Narayanan praises SpaceX Crew-9 mission as 'phenomenal achievement'

India Today

ISRO Chief V Narayanan praised the SpaceX Crew-8 mission as a phenomenal achievement for the scientific community. He highlighted the complexity of autonomous space missions, drawing parallels with ISRO's own experiences. Narayanan expressed excitement over the successful splashdown and emphasised the importance of learning from all missions to improve future endeavours.

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00:00Pramod just hold on, V Narayanan, the ISRO chief is joining us live right now here on

00:05India Today.

00:06Sir, what we saw was absolutely stunning.

00:09Please tell us as a scientist yourself, how do you look at the big occasion that we all

00:15witnessed at 3.28 Indian Standard Time?

00:18First of all, I would like to say we are so excited.

00:26My officer on special duty in Delhi, Mr Rajiv, we both, we are so excited, more we are watching

00:39the entire progress without even sleeping one second.

00:44That is the type of excitement what is there.

00:47And we have to understand, appreciate everything and it is a phenomenal thing and outstanding

00:54thing what happened in the scientific community, scientific era, science and technology development

01:00area.

01:01I don't consider the X country, Y country, I don't consider, but as far as the scientific

01:09community is concerned, what happened is a phenomenal thing.

01:12And I was, yesterday also I told, you know, I'm 100% confident madam will be safely brought

01:21and locked down because we were continuously keeping watch of the mission, how it got de-locked,

01:28how it is moving, being a propulsion expert, I also can understand and appreciate how the

01:36propulsion system is working.

01:39And then we were so much excited to understand the way the mission happened.

01:49And then finally, I'm extremely happy to see all the four astronauts smiling.

01:58And in fact, we are, we are also smiling to be frank, we have a team working on in the

02:05similar game.

02:06I think you can understand and appreciate us, so really it is a really good achievement

02:15for the scientific community, that much only I can tell.

02:19There is so much, you know, that we saw happen in terms of technology, in terms of science,

02:25every, it was just so complex that so many things had to fall in place and every process,

02:30every step that we saw unfold was so intricate in its own way.

02:34If you could tell us from the various sequence of events that we saw unfold, which was, which

02:40was that one part or that one step that you were the most nervous about from a scientific

02:47standpoint and were the most elated then, after it panned out the way that it had to?

02:54I will, I will explain you one simple example.

03:01Hello.

03:02Please go on.

03:04I will simply explain one example.

03:07Yesterday, we had one mission called Space Recovery Experiment Mission, hope you are

03:13aware.

03:13Yes, sir.

03:15You know, the object was from the space, then it was brought and, I mean, gradually it came

03:21in autonomous mode, finally we landed in the right place.

03:25And I used to tell one example.

03:27Assume in Delhi, somebody is dropped two kilometers away from his house and the eyes are closed

03:35and he is asked to go to his house.

03:37And how many of us will write directions, we will go, walk and go to the house?

03:43I don't think 99% of people cannot reach.

03:45I'm sure.

03:47And here, there is the object coming from space in an autonomous way, everything is

03:52inbuilt through a set of hardware, software, and guidance, navigation, so many things have

03:59to work in a chronological way.

04:01And finally, it has to come and flash down.

04:03And in fact, we, we, we, I, as a technical manager, I understand the complexity.

04:08We have accomplished a lot of missions like this.

04:11And similar thing only happened today also.

04:16Yesterday, 10.35, the system got dedocked, then everything through a set of hardware,

04:21software, through a set of sensors.

04:25For making this, there is inertial system, there is a propulsion system, there are health

04:31monitoring systems, then, then a set of so many things.

04:36Of course, that has not helped in later aspects.

04:39And everything has to work in a synchronized way, autonomous way.

04:44And gradually, it has to come down, travel, travel, and monitor, and everything is there

04:49immediately, correct, and then bring it down.

04:52And then it is done.

04:53And for me, to be frank, I'm so happy they are safely brought down.

04:58But otherwise, I understand the complexity involved in this technology.

05:02Because for a system to work in a chronological and synchronized way, the entire system has

05:08to work, which includes, for example, one system.

05:11When it comes down, there will be a lot of heat flux generation on the outer surface.

05:16If anything happens, you know it.

05:18And then that system has worked well.

05:20It has to work well.

05:22Then, of course, the entire system, like inertial system, it has to capture entire orientation,

05:28what is happening in three-dimensional domain.

05:32It has to measure the entirety.

05:34Then the autonomous system, it has to give command to the propulsion system to correct

05:39in the required thing.

05:40Like steering our car, you know?

05:42When you have to go from Delhi to, for example, Agra, you have to steer accordingly, depending

05:47upon this one.

05:48So in the autonomous way, it has to steer and go.

05:52To be frank, work-wise, I understand the end-to-end, I can understand the mission.

05:57But then, happy part of it, when it is done solely, we also do some other professional

06:03job.

06:04And we have done a couple of experiments.

06:07Mars Orbiter mission, when it has gone 68 crore kilometers, please understand, 68 crore

06:13kilometers, we have taken Mars Orbiter.

06:16And finally, by restarting again, after 295 days, we have captured.

06:22It's not a small achievement.

06:23Probably today you are seeing a phenomenal achievement by Bharat, by Bharat education

06:30system, by our own people.

06:33And so I can understand the complexity involved, the technology involved.

06:38Here, same thing, similar thing has happened.

06:41That happened over a period of 295 days, traveling there.

06:44And recently we have completed Aditya Ilon, 15 lakh kilometers to go, and finally captured.

06:51So it's all technology intensive.

06:54We used to say a simple term called rocket science.

06:58Rocket science, 100 percent, it should be perfectly done.

07:01And here it is yet another example what has happened.

07:05So for me, I was quite, I think yesterday also, I hope you remember, I talked with you,

07:10I'm 100 percent confident.

07:12That 100 percent confidence is not just like that when seeing, observing the performance

07:16of a system.

07:17And for me, the happy part of it is Sunita Williams madam's face.

07:24I saw smiling face.

07:26And when I saw smiling face, I was also smiling, even though we didn't sleep even a single

07:31second.

07:32And it was an exciting, happy moment.

07:39Right.

07:40Very quickly, sir, before I let you go, a quick word on Sunita Williams, her resilience,

07:47and where does this take her legacy in your view?

07:55Say, as far as ISRO is concerned, today ISRO is under the leadership of our prime minister,

08:03most respected prime minister, who is leading us from the front.

08:10And he's giving outstanding guidelines and excellent direction.

08:17And under his guidance, the entire team is motivated, and we are working in a fantastic

08:22way.

08:24And we take lessons from all, and to accomplish our mission successfully.

08:32And lessons, whenever you do a test, whatever happens, we don't consider anything as a

08:37failure or setback.

08:38Everything is an opportunity to improve our knowledge.

08:41Is it clear?

08:42Whenever you do a test, whenever you have a small setback happen, we don't consider

08:47it as a failure.

08:48We consider it as a great opportunity, as a learning ground.

08:52And we learn things.

08:53And put the house in order.

08:56And so that's what.

08:57So we will absorb everything.

09:01We have, ISRO team is also a very smart and intelligent team.

09:04And a lot of things you have to understand from others, understand from us, and put the

09:10system in order, so that our mission will be a perfect and perfect successful mission.

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