*"The Character of Sparco"*
Space and space missions in Pakistan have never been a priority of the government or the people. First, it should be said that what is the need for space missions?
American space agency NASA, Indian space agency ISRO, but all over the world are working in the space sector. But is their purpose simply to take pictures of planets, stars, galaxies and gas clouds, to search for space creatures and to find planets billions of light years away from here to see if they are suitable for human habitation or not?
As everyone knows NASA is doing all these research work. But at the same time, an organized communication system is also running and now, due to the growing needs of technology, almost every country in the world including Pakistan has its own communication system through many satellites.
This has led to considerable progress in the field of climate and environmental change, border security, GPS and agriculture. But the question is, what benefit is being taken from the communication system in Pakistan and in which areas is the work being done?
What is SPARCO?
The Pakistan Space Research Organization was founded on 16 September 1961. Which was named SPARCO SUPARCO i.e. space & upper atmosphere research commission. At that time, none of the South Asian countries had their own space agency.
The story begins when the then Soviet Union successfully landed Lunik 2 on the moon in the Luna2 mission on September 12, 1959. This was his sixth mission in the Luna missions. After which America started to worry about how America was left behind in the moon missions.
Let us also tell you that the credit of sending the first man into space is also on the head of the Soviet Union. who sent Vostok 1 into space on April 12, 1961, which orbited the Earth. There was an astronaut named Yuri Gagarin in it. He stayed in space for 1 hour 48 minutes and landed safely in Saratov Oblast.
So the then President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, announced on May 25, 1961, to send a man to the moon. This was a big challenge for NASA at that time. For this purpose it was necessary to examine the upper atmosphere from every region in Earth's orbit. For which statistics around the Indian Ocean were also required. Two months after this announcement by President John Kennedy, on July 13, 1961, the then President of Pakistan General Ayub Khan, Nobel laureate (who was also the then Chief Scientific Adviser) visited America with Dr. Abdul Salam.
Dr. Tariq Mustafa who was associated with the Atomic Energy Commission at that time and was staying in America for training. He also accompanied President Ayub in this meeting. Where the United States put its defendant in front of them.
NASA was ready to provide technology, funds, training to Pakistan for this purpose. But he made this condition that in return, Pakistan will provide the data obtained from the upper atmosphere of the Indian Ocean to the United States. which were crucial to NASA's Apollo missions. Pakistan agreed to this and thus on September 16, 1961, the Pakistan Space Research Organization Sparco was founded. Dr. Tariq Mustafa was provided with blocker technical information and rocket launch awareness at the rocket launch area at Wallops Island by NASA.
Dr. Tariq Mustafa returned to Pakistan and added four more scientists to his team besides Dr. Abdul Salam. In which Salim Mehmood, Ahmad Zameer Farooqui from Air Force, Rehmatullah and Sikandar Zaman from Meteorology Department were included. These six men developed the Rahbar 1 rocket in a short period of about nine months which was launched on June 7, 1962 from Sonmiani in Balochistan. Which accomplished its goal and the data obtained from it was also provided to the United States.
Even after that, Pakistan continued to launch successful series like Rehbar, Shaheen, Ghori, Nigga and many others. But their main purpose was defense and completely went under the auspices of the Pakistan Army. Sparco engineers also worked towards the same goal. Which should have been a civilian institution. The purpose of which is national defense as well as national development. But after going under the auspices of the army, it was made a sensitive institution.
Where the youth could come forward and work in this sector. Due to being made a sensitive institution, it was removed from the reach of common people. Most of the youngsters don't want to make space science their career despite being a hobby because access to Sparco is not possible for common man. The first priority of any country's army is obviously national defense. Therefore, this institution also became the eye of the same thing. In all other countries, space agencies are developed under the supervision of civilian scientists. This does not mean that defense should not be worked on. But it should be accompanied by help in agriculture, prevention of natural calamities and floods.
Since Pakistan is an agricultural country. Therefore, development in this field could be done through communication system. But this has never been the priority of people associated with the technical sector of Pakistan.
Pakistan launched several rockets and missiles from Sonmiani, Balochistan (which is a PAF launching site). But could not make its own launching pad for SLV ie Satellite Launching Vehicle. For this, Pakistan had to resort to China and Kazakhstan. If there were priorities, the budget could have been passed. But Pakistan's priority has always been war and defense over peaceful objectives and welfare of common people. So from 1961 to 2011, Pakistan had rockets and war missilesMade many successful experiments.
But its first satellite, 29 years after the establishment of Badr A Sparco, was sent into space on July 16, 1990 from Shikhang Xichang Satellite Launching Center, China. Badr-B was launched on 10 December 2001 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It also holds the distinction of being the world's first launching pad. Yuri Gagarin who was the first astronaut in space. They were also sent from the same launching site.
Anatolia-1 Anatolia-1, developed by the Boeing Company of America in 2002, was initially sold to Indonesia and launched on 1 February 1996. After some time due to technical failure in it, Pakistan acquired its ownership. And on December 5, 2002, it was officially named Paksat-1 from Anatolia 1.
Through which Pakistan including Central Asia, Europe, and African countries were to be facilitated in television broadcasting, broadband internet and other such communication activities. Paksat-1 was replaced by Paksat-1R on 11 August 2011. It was developed in China and launched from there. Pakistan's first remote sensing satellite (PRSS-1) was also built by China.
While PakTes-1A was developed by Sparco with the help of students and engineers from various universities and these two satellites were launched from China's Juiquan satellite center on July 9, 2018. The main purpose of which is to check climate change through Earth Observation. Sparco plans to launch 5 geo orbit and 6 Leo orbit satellites from 2011 to 2040.
According to Sparco's website, it is doing significant work in agricultural, environmental, meteorological and communication systems. But its latest status and news section has nothing but weather. As if Sparco is enough. What is the need of meteorological department?
Going to the moon or mars aside, if something is done for the agricultural sector and prevention of natural calamities, it might be right. Since its inception, Sparco has been primarily used for war and defense purposes. Sparco's space science engineers were also forced to work only on short-range and long-range missiles, or deliberately so.
By 2023 Sparco plans to launch Pakistan's first optical remote sensing satellite - Paksat-MM1R to be operational by 2024. For which Pakistan's National Economic Council ECNEC has approved a budget of 9.27 billion rupees.
Sparco recently signed a cooperation agreement with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), the Turkish aerospace agency, to build satellites on January 22, 2022. Turkey has an advantage in that it manufactures satellites and sells them around the world. But in the case of SLV launching pad, they are still not independent and take help of SpaceX for this. How much does it cost to build a launching pad?
As for ISRO, its two launch sites are fully operational at present. The first launching pad is no longer active. The Satish Dhawan Space Center was established in 1971 at a cost of $140 million at that time. While the construction of the third launching pad started in September 2012. This has come to fruition in recent years. The total cost of which is said to be 70 million dollars.
In the current year 2022, ISRO's budget has been allocated 5•1 billion dollars. Including the completion of the Manned space flight program in the Gagnian mission.
While a budget of 300 million dollars was allocated for Sparco this year. Which includes sending satellites into space with the help of China.
Being its own launching pad, ISRO has so far launched 43 satellites into space. Apart from itself, it launches satellites for 34 countries and earns $279 million in foreign exchange. Well, ISRO's budget is 50 times more than Sparco's and it is nowhere in Sparco's priorities.
Unless SPARCO will operate independently as a civilian organization for peaceful purposes. Youngsters may not be motivated to come forward in the field of space science and make it their career.
No matter the institution. There may be mistakes and irregularities and in such cases there should be courage to listen and bear criticism and it should do something towards improvement. We can only hope so.
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