Fifty years in the making, India's Space Programme is fulfilling the vision of its founders and delivering services from space that touch the lives of 1.3 billion people every day. In addition to operating a collection of satellites for weather, Earth observation, navigation and communication, today India has a spacecraft orbiting Mars and a space telescope in Earth orbit.

This book provides the big picture of India's long association with science, from historical figures like Aryabhata and Bhaskara to Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, the key architects of its space program. It covers the scientific contribution of Indian scientists during the European enlightenment and industrial revolution. It traces the technological development of Tipu Sultan's use of rockets for war in the 1780s; the all-but-forgotten contribution of Stephen H Smith's use of rockets as a means of transport in 1935 in northern India; and the emergence of Sriharikota – India's spaceport, the heart of India's modern Space Programme.

The themes about the Indian Space...