This book attempts to showcase India’s capabilities in rocketry developed over the past 45 years (1963-2003). Starting from scratch, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) painstakingly mastered this technology in a remarkably short time. The book explains the complex technological developments in the field for the lay person. It also records historical events and provides biographical sketches of legendry personalities like Bhabha, Sarabhai, Dhawan and Brahm Prakash highlighting their contributions to building modern India.

Salient features:Transcripts of interviews with key personnel; Evocative photographs that chart the progress of the rocketry programme; Extracts from biographical articles; Comprehensive name and subject indexes

P Radhakrishnan was responsible for the power systems for Aryabhata, India's first satellite, launched in 1975. In 1985, he was selected and trained as an astronaut to fly in the US Space Shuttle the next year. But the programme was called off following the tragic Challenger disaster in January 1986. He retired as Deputy Director (Systems Reliability & Quality Assurance) from LPSC in 2003.

PV Manoranjan Rao has published several articles on popular science and over 30 papers in national and international journals. He was the Editor-in-Chief for ISRO's prestigious publication–50 Years of Space: A Global Perspective. He retired from VSSC, ISRO as Group Director of the Programme Planning and Evaluation Group.