[00:00:00] Narayan: Hi, you're listening to the new space, India podcast, a biweekly doc show that exclusively brings insights from the Indian space activities ecosystem. I'm your host nine, the co-founder of India's first space focused think tank spaceport, Sarah. Guests on the new space in depth podcast, help you understand space activities related macro and micro trends within India, in all aspects, including space history, local industry space, science, technology, evolution, law, and policy art, and more, the new space in their podcast is supported by Dassault systems, a global leader in providing businesses and people that collaborative virtual environments to enable sustainable innovations.

That's all system solutions, support startups, small and medium scale enterprises and original equipment manufacturers in developing disruptive solutions for space [00:01:00] lunges and

[00:01:00] Sridhara Murthi: satellites.

My name is

I joined Israel on first may, 1975 after passing up. From Indian Institute of management AMA, but I joined the then Israel satellite systems project, which was responsible for the initial satellite projects of Indian space research organization. Um, many of you may be wondering. Getting an MBA from a business school.

Why I joined a research organization that to Israel, which was at that time [00:02:00] was relatively less known in the country. Well, I always liked to take up challenging type of careers, which are unique, but. Competition rat race. That could have been one of the reasons. Secondly, there were many of the earlier MBS from the Indian institutes of management who have giant Israel.

Thanks to the vision of Dr. Sarabhai, who always believed in bringing together. Teams from different disciplines to work together. So I had opportunity to meet, uh, some of this young, very spirited people, [00:03:00] Dr. Karen Karnik Sanjay Deshmukh, who are at that time working for the satellite instructional television experiment in Ahmedabad.

I was very fascinated by the type of work they were doing and particularly, you know, experimenting on applications involving high technology, like space technologies. There was also another connection. Dr. was also the founder of both the. Indian Institute of management, as well as Indian space research organization in Indian instruct management.

One of our senior professors who was the first director to [00:04:00] encouraged us to look at public sectors, going to public sectors and working, uh, so that we can bring in. Uh, management, uh, related, uh, you know, revolution. So many of us, we were attracted towards that ideal. Also all this combined made me to look at your career with Indian space research organization.

Although at that point of time, I was a bit apprehensive, whether it could be a very successful career or not. So. When I joined in Bangalore, it was a sitting outside Bangalore in a industrial setting. This satellite project was going on in Pena and I came and reported to professor. [00:05:00] You are out who was at that time.

The project director, the environment was very viable. Are you able to project Ari Abeta satellite was just, it was launched and there was feverish activity in analyzing the data that is being received from the satellite and to study the performance of various systems and so on. So the very atmosphere there was very vibrant and it attracted me instantly and the people were working.

On weekends also, there was wonderful, uh, you know, homely atmosphere. So this was the first experience I had with ISRO and subsequently very soon after the first satellites, second. Israel started talking about, uh, discussing about, [00:06:00] uh, how satellites could be used for specific applications, how we can build satellites so that it can be useful for, uh, the applications like agriculture, studying weather and so on and so forth.

So based on the experience of aria beta, Immediate plan to build couple of satellites, like Baskara one and two, in which, you know, I was involved in, um, some feasibility studies and so on. It was very exciting to do that at that point of time, then subsequently many management related aspects I could study.

Now. It is also interesting to see, you know, how your single product. Started by Israel has transitioned into yea permanent activity of [00:07:00] generating various satellites into your program. And multiple programs later on the seats of course, was given by Dr. Sarah by himself through his vision. He has put the mantra of self-reliance.

He has also. Initially encourage scientific activity, scientific activities are the one which can universally connect to people across different countries because science science, uh, by spirit and nature is unique. So it was easy to cooperate with other countries and to start activities. This can bring greater confidence in people self-reliance international cooperations, and also, uh, looking at applications which are relevant to the country.

All of the. Seats that are there in the organization has translated into a culture of looking [00:08:00] at how the initial scientific satellite project could be converted into EA tangible applications program. So, uh, there were many management challenges how to transform the structure of the organization, which are more organic for a one single project into your center.

Which require some kind of permanence, some kind of better structure to encourage multiple projects at the same time. So we, we had to think of infrastructure building, which can be commonly used across various projects and also. A year, you know, your system in which organizational structure in which, uh, you know, when once a project is over immediately, all the people who are involved can be redeployed meaningfully into [00:09:00] activities.

So we had to think of activities like technology development programs, which can be useful for future. Satellite projects. We thought of infrastructure, building, infrastructure, planning, activities, and so on and so forth. I ended developing human resources. It was completely a learning culture which attracted us.

There was no hierarchy, rigid separations that were encouraged in the organism. There were frequent review meetings so that people could express freely across different levels. This is something which is very unique in Israel organization, which had made it possible to undertake very successfully the multidisciplinary activities and to how effective communication system.[00:10:00]

So many such a unique organizational culture, we can see you went in those early days, which has helped later on to convert the learning experience into experiments, which are of larger scale gen to end projects like. Yeah, experimental satellites for communications and testing it out and so on. And then from the experimental satellites, going to operational satellites, where I, there could be greater accountability, service standards, and so on built into the thing so that they can become a vehicles for future.

Commercialization and expansion of industrial activities. So the seeds for a logical growth of activities, what's possible through the [00:11:00] culture that was, uh, developed. Another important thing I would like to say is what made this sort of tick was a kind of adherence to meritorious. This was very important.

You know, we, we were not aware of any other consideration than, you know, merit either in the recruitment placement promotions. And also, you know, in, in terms of providing opportunities, this is what. Based on a merit. So they are organizations that could be built on greater trust, greater cooperation, and so on.

Uh, th this is very important. The second aspect I always enjoy it is the customer political atmosphere. There are people from different states of India, almost. It is like mini India. When we were working there, we could see people from different states. Interacting. [00:12:00] And we could learn from each other. Uh, that atmosphere was wonderful.

So all this took me into actively participating, uh, normally, uh, the MBA. It is said that, that they don't stay in an organization for more than one or two years, but, you know, it was very different in my case. I, you know, I stayed throughout and in fact, this is the case with many other MBS, also, you know, an organization who after joining state throughout, uh, till the completion of the service.

Uh, so this is a unique, um, The environment of our organization that we enjoyed and we could take up, uh, you know, uh, greater responsibilities and roles. So I would like to recount some of the areas in which, you know, I could, uh, work and also [00:13:00] see the growth success of the organization in the initial. You know, there was very little infrastructure and we had to seek the support of industries.

So consciously Israel has taken measures to develop industries. So certain programs were part of you in the middle of 1970s. When the program had its beginnings, there was a group formed called technology transfer. For which Dr. Siddhartha was made the chairman. And there were many engineers who are representing different centers of Israel.

So I was representing from the satellite center in this group, and this is the group which initially was given the mandate, [00:14:00] whatever is rock and. It should be unique. What industry can do is Russia not to do is, should use the capabilities of industry. So this ethos was very, uh, strong and, you know, we started thinking how professionally we can develop capabilities in industry by transferring the technology.

So yeah. Professional system of technology transfer was developed initially under the chairmanship of Dr. Siddhartha and subsequently, uh, with, uh, Dr. Sudarshan, I saw this was a wonderful time where we found that, you know, in three different ways we can develop industry participation. One is this one needs a lot of systems for its own space project.

So to make industries incentivize, we devised a scheme of [00:15:00] buyback and creating divisions in industrial space divisions like in our industry is like industries, Larsen and Toubro. Uh Godridge and all this, you know, how become are the busiest centers who supplied, you know, the system. Hardware and many products for it.

projects. The technology where we thought wherever necessary was given to industry by Israel, through the technology transfer system and virtually Israel engineers used to go and stay in industry, solve the problems, and they gave them handholding support for. Another category of, uh, items we look at is there are many, uh, products which are [00:16:00] required when, you know, the space systems are to be used.

Typically this could be a ground, the system to receive information from a satellite or equipment to use it in communications. And so on. These are needed not only by Israel, but also the users. So they are required in larger numbers. So the technology which is developed by Israel, which is incidentally required, even when new developers space hardware to test it out, it could be shared with the industry or sometimes even developed in participation with industry.

This is a strategy which was followed in the space application center. Uh, you know, there, there could be larger demand for direct receiving systems from satellites. And so on. This was transferred to industry. This was another category. The third category is more interesting. What is very uniquely developed for space, [00:17:00] whether we could, uh, use it for spinoff applications.

Like, you know, some of the eutectic powders, which are chemical powders, which are used to control the fire SP special fires, like metal fires or oil fires. And so on, this could be useful, although it was specifically developed in the context of space requirement. So these spinoff products where many. I and this insulators, uh, or the, the sensors and so on, which can find larger in the context of larger applications, we could, uh, you know, share with industry and develop.

So as many as 200 technologies, if we could promote, but then, you know, how do we, when we look at the field, there was very little, uh, successful. We tried to see what is the reason [00:18:00] why people are not able to transfer the technology from my technical organization to industry. Then we follow them that there were always intermediate.

Between those people who develop the technology or in the recipients, this has reduced the efficiency and many times it also made technology transfer. Yeah. Failure. So we thought that we should cut chart this and, you know, bring in a direct contact between the development teams and the industry teams.

And then. How, how do industry, how does industry know, you know, what is being developed here? So we started a system of, you know, making announcements, preparing, uh, you know, interest, exploration notes, giving a brief about the technology possible application and so on. Took some young people from the management schools, there are many management [00:19:00] schools and young people are very energetic.

They can travel, they can meet people and so on so they can study about the market needs and get us the feedback so that we could fine tune the product to the needs of the users. And then there is a question of pricing many times when you transfer a technology, the capacity of the industry to take it.

And do you know, the industry is taking risks. They may not know, you know, what exactly is the market that will be there. So initially they would like to commit lesson subsequently they could, when the sales are good, they could show. The revenues. So, uh, we could have a flexible pricing system, the principles for pricing, what it decided and so on and so forth.

The post transfer, servicing the updating of technologies. Hand-holding during the initial testing in [00:20:00] industry, all this very professionally we got developed, and this went a long way in developing very core deal relations with the. So it helped us to develop many industries, which has started taking part in the generating many products, indigenously, which otherwise were not available.

There are many materials with these included, even public sector organizations and private organizations. Uh, Th this could be special allies. This, when we started the second rocket PSLV, you know, they are, it needed a special type of steel called managing steel. I know we went to the, one of the, uh, you know, the process organization like Ms.

Michelle, that to. In [00:21:00] Hyderabad to, to develop this special material. And, you know, you know, the aluminum industry came to our rescue and then a large number of fabrication industry in building very special equipment for coatings vacuum coatings, uh, testing systems, because you need the simulators, which simulate the space conditions.

So, uh, such a special equipment could be built by industry. There were a large number of items we could take you on electronic parts and then, you know, the special type of detectors like charged couple of devices. And then in communication, you use amplifiers. So traveling to amplifiers, which is based on a field effect, transistor based system sensors.

So all this type of developments could be undertaken by industry with the [00:22:00] technical interface from Israel, Israel support. So this has helped us to, with the stand I and real self-reliance, uh, we could, we could achieve self-reliance was not a taboo in Israel. Self-reliance was broadly interpreted Israel.

Didn't want to reinvent. But if a partner, an item is critical, uh, Israel wanted to have an alternative so that a small late-term could not hold big program to ransom. So this was the wisdom with which, you know, the self-reliance. You know, uh, developed principle was implemented in Israel and also always, you know, we had the alternatives plan B as part of the project planning activities and the review systems involving outside [00:23:00] experts, but lots of inputs into the organization, kind of objective look into the system.

So. All this made very robust type of a system within Israel. I ended up then, you know, Israel, all of us also very pragmatic. We started developing satellites. We started developing launch vehicles when we did this satellite. It was required that larger and larger satellites gave better economies. So we needed large, larger satellites, but launch vehicle technologies were more complicated.

Help was not easily available from outside. So it was taking longer time. So we could launch only smaller satellites. So here we have a different, so we had to independently pursue the path of. [00:24:00] Oh, yeah. Selling in satellites, building higher efficiency, higher wage satellites on one site, particularly for communications, and also trying to see how we can adopt the satellites we build for the launch vehicles.

So in remote sensing satellites where, you know, we completely wanted to go in indigenous approach. We made the satellite smaller, more compact. We took a risk to. Adopt the technologies, which are more advanced. So we could produce smaller systems with the better performance, with the effect that in the middle of 1995, we became best in the civilian domain for the remote sensing satellites, which gave us access to the global market.

Now, this industrialization is a wonderful. Urea with lots of, you know, [00:25:00] uh, uh, specific participation from large participation from Israel engineers and, uh, development saga, which has given very strong, uh, footing for this self-reliant efforts of the program. This is very much in medicated, 1998. There was, there was technology denial because of the missile technology control regime.

And we had to fully pursue indigenous route to develop cryogenic engines for our lunch vehicles, geostationary launch vehicle program. So at this point of time, we could withstand and also continue with our programs because of this strong base that is built in industrial side. So what you see vision for this industry?

Space [00:26:00] industries are the instruments for the growth of the program. If we look at the world, the world was moving towards having greater and greater private participation. Private companies were making satellites. They were warning satellites, they were providing services and they were also looking at global markets.

So a space industry when developed in India has to have a ultimate vision of growing into an entity, which can play globally on equal footing. This is the ultimate vision with which, you know, we have to take the industry development. So we were wondering how we reach this system. Right now all the industries only are serving the Indian news Indian space project needs.[00:27:00]

And also there is no industry which is integrating the total system. There is no industry, which is warning the total space systems. So we thought that, you know, initially we need to look at some policies which will be enablers for industry to, to, to come into your stage in which you know that they can move up in the value.

And secondly, eventually they should be unable to play a global, global role. So what is coming in the way white industries in India are not thinking like America investing into these areas. There are several regions. One is the access to technologies. The second is the risk in world space requires large investment.

And also the gestation is very long there. How to wait for a long time to get the [00:28:00] returns and also space systems per se provide less return. So unless there is a huge market for applications, which in fact, you know, is the space system is an upstream system. It is the. He says, you know, which is a larger market, probably if you have yeah.

One, uh, one rupee investment in two years, space segment, you can generate a business of 1500. That is one is two 15, is the ratio in which, you know, the upstream investments I enter, the services can work. So Indian in industry naturally was attracted more to play a role of, you know, providing services with the space systems made available through someone who is taking greater risks.

So the Indian government, you know, try to provide [00:29:00] that facility. But this is only the beginning. Eventually, you know, industry itself should even get into the investment into the space segment. So on policy, Frank Israel started looking at space communications policy, which were, you know, the, there was a vision of, you know, providing a route forward.

From the Indian satellites and also sharing whatever is the government assets sharing the capacity for the services provided by the private sector. This what are enabled, at least in the beginning, the other was also relating to the space imaging related policies. There also the sharing of data. We're owned by the satellites of [00:30:00] government was enabled.

So these policies came into picture, but at the same time, there are other elements which are required, which were not ready at that point of time. So this, even for decades, you know, this couldn't take off. So in the initial stages, we, how to think of an intermediate. System which can allow the Indian industries to create heritage so that eventually, you know, they can, uh, see the global market.

This is the concept in which, you know, uh, Mr. who was a great champion of this corporate front. Uh, we created a corporate. In Israel, which was, uh, required to think of creating an interface for the industry so that, you know, they could [00:31:00] participate and satisfy the requirement global requirements. So we created a company under, uh, under Israel as a marketing arm.

So, uh, this company did not get into, you know, large investments. It intended to use the facilities of Israel, wherever, you know, it is available. And also the expertise of Israel because it is rural Southern company. So access is better, but at the same time, you seek capacity in industry. Also I and service the global market.

So I moved naturally from looking into the industry interface activities to commercialization activities. That is how I got introduced into commercialization. So we created this company and this company initially took up the challenge of marketing, the images. [00:32:00] What were the challenges we faced at that time?

We were not known at all. We didn't have any degree in marketing globally. Secondly, we didn't have the marketing infrastructure. So whatever efforts we made to, to, to provide, although we were very competitive, it was not very easy for us to enter into the market. Then we started looking at who are the best in the world who, how this market.

Infrastructure. So we had the opportunity to collaborate and create a marketing exclusive marketing tie up with the American company in a space. At that time, it was called icon us and subsequently it became, uh, you know, the GUI and then, uh, space imaging and so on. So we created this Pyre [00:33:00] and started.

Marketing our ground systems, the, the systems which can receive data, remote sensing data from the satellites. And also we started providing data to the global users through this marketing tire. So that is how the story of, uh, our imaging centers. Our satellite could fill the global map, almost all continents.

You know, we had a facilities to receive the data. As many as 22 ground stations came up and the kind of collaborations that were enabled, made it possible to make some innovations also very interesting thing. You know, normally those days the satellite data was being received through very large system.

Almost six to seven meter dishes. You know, you need a separate [00:34:00] building, a lot of investment for somebody who wants to receive the data and you know, do business. So there were innovations from Russians at that time company there. Produced in a small ground stations. And also there was innovations of mobile stations, you know, you, which can move from one place to another and receive data depending on the need.

This was very attractive to, to, to, to, to defense forces. So many such innovative methods of receiving, uh, data from satellite would be possible. And then, you know, we could have, eh, worldwide. We heard a couple of problems of them. What has happened. This is a big company, which is marketing data from American satellites.

When we started, there was none but subsequently, you [00:35:00] know, they had their own satellites. And then, you know, we were, we were providing data. There was no possibility of building our own. Our name is not projected. It was always, even when we are giving through our satellite, there was no way in which we could build a brand image globally, which was necessary eventually, you know, we need to how a stable, global business.

So this was one of the problems we faced then how to overcome this. The second, of course it was an exclusive or anything. I, and, you know, the company had its own priorities. So the amount of returns were almost 50% of the revenues were to be shared with the company. So it was a big company number one company.

So it was negotiating wise, it was becoming difficult. So we thought that, you know, we should independently go and try out. [00:36:00] And secondly, we should build our own. So there was, yeah. First stewards that time we started in that direction. There was also, yeah, very good. Uh, type of, you know, awareness created through the, he may just, uh, which benefited us.

Uh, for example, in Europe, we had one company which was, uh, uh, you know, marketing our data. They, how extensively. To participate in projects like wall-to-wall Europe, wall-to-wall imaging that was called like that because the entire Europe was homogeneously mapped and our images were used. And because of this kind of applications, we had tremendous amount of feedback from user point of view.

When our data was to be used in a global context, [00:37:00] what is the kind of technical, uh, improvements we should make in terms of the ground processing? And so on, we could get a very good handle on that. So the commercial activities, apart from putting a, you know, a, you know, greater accountability on us because of the demands of the users, how also resulted in improving our products.

This is about remote sensing. Then we are, we also started about what about other capabilities? Israel has a very broad range of capabilities. It can make satellites. It already is. Launch vehicles are proven. It started launching all remote sensing satellites from our own country. And you know, it has a tremendous other capabilities.

How can we make use of those capabilities? How much she'll putting our capabilities into the global market. So we started thinking [00:38:00] about it and started exploring that direction. The first came the challenge of, you know, how to market our lunch services. Those days. There were only few options for launching small satellite systems, but then there was dumping in the market.

So it was not easy for us to make entry into the market. The greatest challenges, since we had Tilden less number of land launches as compared to the Russian vehicles or American vehicles or European vehicles, the commercial insurance companies were not coming. And. You know, viable solutions to the customers.

So initially to get entry into the market, initial flights, we had to do a relaunch guarantees, like, you know, the area and also had initially, you know, such a system. So we, we, we, we got into the [00:39:00] market and then, you know, then we talked to what will make a difference in, in marketing the launch services to.

We found, uh, there was a wonderful, uh, support from the launch vehicle program office official and also the, the center, which producers lunch vehicle, the become Sarabhai space center and a center where launches take place. That is the three headquarter range with the support of all this. We made, you know, the customer service as the key differentiator.

One thing, keeping to the schedule. So if somebody wants comes for lunch and he wants to launch, by the end of the year, we were ready to offer the launch. This is one difference. And also we also made price, very affordable coming to the [00:40:00] risk we gave the launch again. So all this, there were regular lunches started.

People started coming. Then we found that we have sufficient capacity to offer multiple lunches. Now, with the help of some companies with the, with the efforts, we could develop interfaces for launching multiple satellites. This is something I end our launch week also. Launch into different Orbitz, which are not so easy for small satellites, which go as piggybacks along with bigger satellites and large vehicles.

So all these advantages of offering multiple type of Orbitz, multiple satellites at a time for better economy, better customer service made a difference. And today [00:41:00] we thought a single failure. There is also, I think, a fortune failure on our side in terms of this artistical, you know, it is statistically impossible to how 342 satellites or whatever it is from 34 countries without a single failure, all of them.

So it was a tremendous, very soon we came to your situation. They commercial insurance company. I told her that, you know, we, we offer almost same insurance, uh, premium a cost to the customers at the same rates as the most reliable vehicles of the world. So this was a wonderful thing. And of course this continues the third area of, you know, how we can build the, the.

So here, we thought that, you know, unless we have earlier supplied satellites to some customer [00:42:00] and built the heritage, it was not possible to even enter the competition because the competition conditions required that you should have successfully done the business earlier. So to begin with you need a success, but you know, that is denied because you know, you are a star.

Startup there. So, uh, we thought that the best way for us is to go with a company where, you know, we could define the synergy. So we could do that with the European Astrium company, which was a very successful well-known company. So we had, uh, two, four Jetta. Now we are government. That a private company.

How do we bring this successful private public partnership? Even today is the biggest challenge in India. I was discussing [00:43:00] about it this morning. Uh, even today we don't have a very good model in high-tech areas relating to public private partnership. Probably one of the reasons why we are not able to progress very well in the commercialization, but here we could build that.

We decide what are the things which come in the way when a public and private companies, how to, you know, come together. So one of the important things is the risk. If there is a failure who shares this. They can divide the, you know, revenues, but then, you know, there is also some penalty in case, you know, you are not successful and that will be known only after, you know, you see a, you supply this heart rate, although insurance is there and all that, there is some amount of penalty, which you, how to bear.

And how do you share this risk between. [00:44:00] Two companies. So this is a very ticklish thing. It is very difficult to establish when two teams come together and work from two different cultures, you have to prove that, you know, you see it is like a single T team for a customer. It should be a single team. So we had to innovate on your organizational system, risk sharing.

Besides that irrespective of anything, we will share 50 50. If there is a failure and to be how to bear the penalty of that failure. So this clarified many things so that there is no oneupmanship, you know, you see all this, uh, uh, maneuvering is not necessary once, you know, you have a clarity. Both of, both of us, we are sharing equally.

That was a wonderful formula. Gave us the sexist we could [00:45:00] successfully bid when to satellite contracts and supply to the Euro. So what wo customer far one is a huge company service company. The you util fat. The other was a company in UK and this second satellite was. At that time. And also that company was making satellite, our partner was making satellites.

We were making satellites. Is there no conflict? We, how to resolve that tissue also because we are also marketing, they're also marketing. We should not compete with each other. So how do we resolve that? We divided our strong point is smaller satellites. So up. 4.5 kilowatt power satellites will be providing and beyond [00:46:00] that they will be providing.

So this conflict was also resolved. So it was all this shows. If there is a will, there is a possible solution in a spirit of give and take so that, you know, we can build in synergy and any issues, if it is predictive. I think the teams can work wonderfully learn from each other. Take advantage of the strengths of each.

This is what we demonstrated through this system. So, uh, the commercialization fierce up was also very interesting, very challenging, and we have to constantly innovate and keep doing to the dynamically, to the needs. So. Yeah environment. Although, you know, we were working in a government set up, we could do many things because of this constant response to, you know, [00:47:00] opportunities.

As well as, you know, the, the best to support we had from a wonderful organization, like, eh, Israel as I was mentioning. So it was very exciting for me to work with this organization and to complete my full term with this organization. This, these are some of the things I wanted to share. Uh, of course there are, there's a long.

Not always, you know, you know, we are meeting success, but with each you set back also, we were learning. That was the culture of the organization. And each time some setback is that people always are leaders, at least, you know, we experienced that. They encouraged us to look at, you know, what we learned out of that, how not to repeat.

The mistakes, how to correct [00:48:00] the situation. You know, they, this was a kind of sentiment rather than, you know, going with chanting. And so on this also developed some kind of a free enterprise within. Our organization so that so many things could be achieved. So many missions, successful missions, so many instruments where I think there are as many as hundred instruments, which are developed within the country and industry could develop many new systems.

All this was possible because of the culture, culture, and delivery. We enjoyed in this organization. Now, when we have this initial successes, of course, you know, we had a lot of attention because this was a new activity. Initially, you know, the media, a lot of publishing publicity, each a successful launch.

We were on the front page, [00:49:00] there came a situation. One of our insect launches went to the, to the second page. So you immediately, uh, chairman Israel called us, called us and said that that why we are losing the attention of the public, use it because we helped become less relevant. Are we not thinking of new things and exploring the new frontiers?

What is the reason then we decided. We will have every week. Yeah. Kind of evening session with some of the intellectuals in the city. So we could take a meal and then have a break in one of those. Yeah. Uh, we were meeting one of the scientists who was leading a scientific Institute research [00:50:00] institution here, and he mentioned there are many things.

Which are less known about moon its own origin, the chaos as the evidence was available. And I, the completely, it is a dry bone planet, no water there. And so on and so forth, he told about some of the unresolved questions about. You. And before that it caught our attention and the chairman immediately, he assembled a team.

There was a team to look at the mission possibilities. I, in the UN a couple of years earlier, there was a publication from one of our engineers who explored different ways of reaching moon. And what is the least. One which demands list of NRG and so on the other beaten pot [00:51:00] traditionally, which is being used by others.

And so on these three options were looked at and they're studied with the launch vehicle capability. We, how they could find that, you know, we could have a mission to the. At least technically now, how do we bring in instruments required for study of various aspects of the moon? What is that we are going to study.

So be taught that whatever instruments we develop, we should also give some opportunity for international cooperation. International cooperation is a wonderful thing. Uh, you know, which Israel can develop. And in this context, you know, we should provide through this mission opportunities for international payloads.

So it was possible to make announcements off opportunities and we [00:52:00] choose among them. We had very prominent institutions from us, Bulgaria, Europe, European spaces. Yeah. Japan and so on, they had wonderful proposals and we could have almost half of the instruments from different agencies in this one, single mission, which was a smaller satellite, which could be launched through the Indian way.

And it became a kind of thing, but then, you know, there could always be criticism. You know, you see your house so many needs in the country. Why are you spending money on it? You sorta mission like wound mission. Why should you go there? What is the use of science? Anyway, many, many countries are studying about it.

So to address this question, a lot of preparatory activities were undertaken the. Academics who [00:53:00] are there, the industry, people there were consultations through associations or like the academies in the country and so on. So there was a kind of a single voice. And also there was a positive. Support. So in fact, this mission was announced by prime minister for the first time during the independence day speech.

And that put, yeah, very strong justification with the backdrop of preparatory activities, which were pushed by our chairman because he felt that there should be a conscience as when we are. Uh, missions of this kind, people may interpret that we are moving away from the initial vision of Israel to, to, to sharply focused on, you know, the developmental application.

But science also has got its spinoffs. [00:54:00] It's relevance, meaningful anger, people. So working in this frontier areas is something which we cannot ignore also. So that is what we could achieve through the mission, like January on mission. So I had a lot of opportunity in working the international corporations fear for a short time.

Three years. And I was the scientific secretary of Israel directly under the staff of chairman ISRO, and also coordinating with all the program officers assigned central surface role, looking after activities, relating to the outreach from space international cooperation, human resources, development, uh, the budget and resources, all this different offices.

Coordinating with them and then, you know, guiding and so on. This role was also very interesting as part of this role, [00:55:00] I was able to do a lot of international co-op participate in international cooperation activities. And also I had an opportunity to go to Europe, be a part of our embassy in Paris, to Lias with the, the space organizations and space industry.

And particularly it was a time when we, how to build the relations in the most healthy way, and also participate in the United nations related activities, uh, in the COPUS and that his committee on peaceful uses of outer space and so on. So I had wonderful opportunity to meet various people. And I could see that lots of respect is commanded for the capabilities of engineers.

In India, it is true and so on because they were exposed to many of the engineers going and I, you know, uh, working training in the [00:56:00] European establishments and cooperating for the tracking network corporate. And also we had wonderful opportunity to build giant missions. When I was there, we debated a lot to build a strong synergetic mission, uh, between France and.

Because things were coming down. So the coordinator from the French national space agency, and I was debating a lot to think of something. And during one of our chairman's visit, we could come up with an idea to have a joint mission. Subsequently this became the famous, uh, you know, may God tropics mission, the mission to study the waters.

Which is so important, little is known about the complete water cycle, uh, of art. So this was a wonderful opportunity that I had in, uh, to [00:57:00] work in various international cooperation activities also, and to build up the areas here, the challenge was mainly, you know, our interests aligned with many spaces.

Because space has a global outlook global perspectives and so on. So, uh, we had alignment with the concerns of, uh, the major space powers and spacefaring countries. On one side, we were also developing country. So we had the empathy for the use of space, space, applications, and so on. So we had to balance both.

And this was possible through the international cooperative activities. So it was a wonderful journey. Anyway, I had a lot of learning through this career and subsequently I thought that I should spend or use this [00:58:00] experience in sharing this excitement, knowledge and everything that I can spirit that I gained with young people in the university.

That is where I am engaged in today. Thank you.

[00:58:16] Narayan: Thank you for listening into this episode of the new space in debt podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share this episode with anyone you believe will enjoy listening to it. You'll be able to find the new space in their podcast, in any of the podcasting platforms that you may be using, including apple, Google, Spotify, YouTube, and others do subscribe to the podcast in case you want to receive new episodes, automatic.

I'm grateful if you're able to leave a rating for the podcast, which will help others discover it. Thank you for listening. And again, and the next episode will be out in the next two weeks as usual.