Opinion | Rocket Politics: How India Turned A Geopolitical Roadblock Into NISAR’s Launchpad

Last Updated:July 30, 2025, 13:21 IST

The story of India’s cryogenic journey is not just about science; it’s about sovereignty, strategy, and a quiet but decisive political victory in the global space race

In the 1990s, the United States blocked India from acquiring cryogenic engine technology, invoking the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The intent was clear: keep India confined to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), away from the coveted Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) that underpins telecommunications, navigation, and high-value military applications. Three decades later, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, a joint India-US mission, is set to fly aboard the GSLV Mk II powered by India’s own cryogenic engine. History has a sense of poetic justice, and this upcoming launch epitomises it.

The Science Behind The Politics: Understanding Specific Impulse

Rocket politics begins with a deceptively simple metric: specific impulse (Isp). Isp measures how efficiently a rocket engine uses propellant, expressed in seconds. The higher the Isp, the longer the engine can produce thrust per unit of fuel.

Consider two fuels:

• Fuel A: Produces 1000 kgf thrust, consumes 1000 kg in 300 seconds.
• Fuel B: Produces the same 1000 kgf thrust but lasts 600 seconds on 1000 kg.

Fuel B is twice as efficient. That efficiency gap defines whether a rocket can barely scrape LEO or carry heavy payloads to GEO and beyond.

ISRO’s early SLV rockets of the 1970s and 1980s used solid fuels like PBAN and HEF-20 with Isp values around 270 seconds, enough for LEO but far from the 460-second performance of Russian KVD-1 cryogenic engines. Cryogenics, using liquid hydrogen and oxygen at extremely low temperatures, offered that leap. Without it, India’s dreams of GEO satellites and deep-space missions were grounded.

The 1990s Technology Denial: A Calculated Strike

By the late 1980s, India knew cryogenic technology was the gateway to true space autonomy. European and American vendors offered engines, but at prohibitive costs. Russia, emerging from the Soviet collapse, agreed in 1991 to supply KVD-1 engines and transfer the technology to build them domestically.

That deal alarmed Washington. Under MTCR pretexts, the US pressured Moscow to cancel the tech transfer, claiming cryogenics could be adapted for ICBMs. The irony? Cryogenic engines are utterly unsuitable for missiles due to their complexity and slow start times. But the move wasn’t about missiles; it was about power.

The renegotiated 1992 deal gave India a handful of readymade engines but no blueprints, no know-how. It was a strategic chokehold aimed at keeping India dependent and Russia weakened. This process was “rocket politics” at its most ruthless: deny the technology, control the orbit.

The Long Road To Indigenous Cryogenics

ISRO responded with a decision that would redefine India’s technological destiny: build it ourselves. The first attempt in 2000 failed spectacularly. But unlike many nations that collapsed under denial regimes, India persisted. The CE-7.5 engine, with an Isp of ~454 seconds, emerged after years of trial and error. In 2014, it powered the GSLV Mk II into a successful GEO mission, finally breaking the embargo’s intended ceiling.

The success of CE-7.5 led to CE-20 on the GSLV Mk III, enabling 4-ton payloads to GTO and supporting missions like Chandrayaan-2 and 3. India had cracked the code. The denial had backfired: instead of dependence, it forged self-reliance.

NISAR: A Symbol Beyond Science

Fast-forward to 2025. NISAR, a US-India collaboration to map Earth’s ecosystems and monitor climate change, lifts off atop a GSLV Mk II with an Indian cryogenic heart. The same technology Washington tried to withhold now carries a joint mission between the two nations.

But the symbolism goes deeper. NISAR embodies India’s transition from a space programme fighting for scraps of denied tech to a partner that commands respect. It’s also a subtle message: India doesn’t forget the politics behind the science. Today, the “Vishwa Bandhu” vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – India as a global partner contributing to humanity’s collective good – rests firmly on indigenous engines born out of adversity.

Rocket Politics In The Global Arena

Cryogenic technology is more than engineering; it’s strategic sovereignty. GEO satellites handle secure communications, military data links, and national navigation systems like India’s IRNSS. Whoever controls access to GEO controls critical slices of global infrastructure.

The US denial of the 1990s was part of a broader Cold War hangover strategy: restrict tech, maintain the hierarchy of space powers. China, learning from India’s experience, aggressively developed its own cryogenic Long March engines to avoid similar dependence. Today, South Korea and Japan are doing the same.

For India, indigenous cryogenics have unlocked more than orbits; they’ve unlocked leverage. The GSLV Mk II and Mk III are not just launch vehicles; they are strategic assets. With the NISAR launch, India has signalled it’s no longer a junior partner in space; it’s a peer.

The Lesson: Denial Breeds Determination

The NISAR launch isn’t just a technological milestone; it’s a political arc completed. A denial meant to stifle India’s ambitions instead birthed an indigenous capability that no embargo can touch. In the annals of space history, this story will stand alongside Russia’s Sputnik and America’s Apollo not as a tale of triumph over physics, but of triumph over geopolitics.

In a world where technology is increasingly weaponised for control, India’s cryogenic journey is a blueprint for self-reliance. It reinforces a simple but profound truth: sovereignty in space is sovereignty on Earth.

As the cryogenic roar of the GSLV Mk II fades into the upper atmosphere carrying NISAR, it carries with it three decades of defiance, innovation, and quiet vindication. Rocket politics began with a denial; it ends with an engine built in Bengaluru lifting a joint mission with the very nation that tried to keep it grounded.

And in that arc lies the true power of Indian science, not just to reach the stars, but to rewrite the politics that guard the gates to them.

The writer is a technocrat, political analyst, and author. He pens national, geopolitical, and social issues. His social media handle is @prosenjitnth. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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First Published:

July 30, 2025, 13:21 IST

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