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.
