Plans to send astronauts to orbit on an Indian launch vehicle depend on making the engine work, and India’s space program has a long history of overcoming setbacks on its own. As it does, it is becoming a respected member of the international spacefaring club in its own right.

Loss of the first launch vehicle to fly with the Indian cryogenic engine was a setback, but there is so much momentum in India’s space enterprise that its launch campaign continues with the orbiting this summer of Cartosat 2B on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

That mission continues India’s focus on Earth observation from space to help its huge population, particularly in the countryside. The push to develop a cryogenic upper stage for its space launch vehicles has more of an urban thrust, and the nascent human spaceflight program epitomizes it. As they struggle to find out why their new cryogenic engine apparently failed its first flight test, Indian rocket engineers are gaining valuable experience that government planners fully expect will help underpin India’s 21st century high-tech economy. The excitement of sending humans into space is calculated to maintain public interest in the effort.

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