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ISRO and Advanced Materials:
- A national effort is needed to develop and produce advanced materials to drive the future space programme, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Sivan has said.
- Along with high propulsion systems for its launch vehicles, the ISRO is pursuing materials that have extraordinary properties, such as aluminium and beryllium alloys and carbon nanotubes.
- These are needed for the upcoming high-profile national missions such as the Human Space Programme (HSP), the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), re-entering crew capsules, fuel-saving scramjet missions and the distant single-stage launchers. Locally made materials would also help to cut imports and also lower mission costs.
- In recent years, the ISRO has indigenised a large number of materials that are hard to get. This has reduced the import content from around 32% to 8% now.
- However, development of advanced materials such as carbon composites and those for electronics is the immediate need of the space programme.
- A national effort is required in these two areas. Lab-level R&D can produce small quantities of special materials. But there is a need to produce them in large quantities.
