Not possible to locate people buried under landslide debris using space tech: ISRO chief

Bengaluru: In view of the recent natural disasters like the landslide in Kerala, where many people are trapped under debris, ISRO chairman S Somanath on Saturday said only a certain depth of filtration is possible with space technology and could not be relied on for finding those people.

The ISRO chief was answering a question in this regard in the outreach programme organised by ISRO, #asksomanatisro on Instagram.

“There are limitations of space-based sensors to locate objects that are buried under debris, which is currently an issue. It is not possible to detect what is deep under the ground from space. A certain depth of filtration is always possible by radar signals, but it is not possible to find, say, underground channels or petroleum deposits and deep minerals,” added Somanath.

Answering another question during #asksomanathisro, on the Space Flight Agreement with NASA-identified service provider announced on August 2, through which two ‘Gaganyatris’ will train to be backup mission pilots, Somnath talked about what it could mean to ISRO.

“The process of going to the International Space Station itself gives you so much learning. One of our astronauts is going to be trained in the whole ground process of preparation. That will tell us how one should prepare Gaganyatris for the Gaganyaan mission,” said Somnath.

According to him, when Gaganyatris really go through the flight experience, working with international crew who are already up there, it will really give them the type of knowledge and skill, which will make ISRO ready for India’s mission.

The ISRO chief also spoke about the initial failures of ISRO, which eventually paved the way for its successes.

“We have had enough share of our failures, and all those failures are behind us. But it is particularly important to look back at failures and understand why they failed in the first place. It is also important to speak about them,” said Somanath.

“One of our first launches, the PSLV failed. The first launch of SSLV failed, we also could not soft land on the moon with the Chandrayaan 3. They were all realities and when a failure occurs, we have a very solid mechanism within the organisation to understand and go through the analysis of the failure and then find the reason why it failed,” said the ISRO chief.

This is how ISRO learns how to mitigate those failures, he added.

“So, as a space scientist, I can tell you that it is crucial when one engineers systems to ask oneself how it can fail and follow this with appropriate design interventions,” said Somanath.

He also said that he is excited about the very first National Space Day to be celebrated on August 23, to honour the historic landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the southern side of the moon on August 23, 2023.

During the one-hour session that saw about 2,000 people log in, Somnath also answered technical questions about the functioning of certain missions.

He also answered many queries on how a civil engineer or a person with a background in life sciences or biology can pursue a career in space science.

The session is held once a month and usually on a weekend.