“Engines of Ambition: Lessons from ISRO for India’s Marine and Airpower”, My Ind Maker, February 05, 2026
“In the history of this planet, no country has ever become a superpower without having a blue-water navy. China’s PLAN corrected the historical mistake committed by China’s Hongxi emperor (Zhu Gaozhi) in the 15th century when China’s navy under eunuch Admiral Zheng He was essentially disbanded. Now, PLAN aggressively works towards achieving the unique status of TSN, a Thousand Ships’ Navy. In 2009, China undertook historic naval reforms, converting all its seafaring vessels into dual-use naval platforms. A country that never had an aircraft carrier now boasts three operational carriers and is building a fourth, which will soon become operational. China has plans to acquire a total of nine aircraft carriers by 2035, aiming to significantly expand its blue-water navy capabilities for sustained operations in the Pacific and South China Sea and more for power projection.
How is it that India, a developing nation barely free of colonial shackles in the mid-20th century, managed to build one of the world’s most complex cryogenic rocket engines but still depends on imports for its marine and jet engines? The paradox is striking. On one hand stands the CE-20 cryogenic engine developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), powering the LVM3 upper stage [1][2]. On the other hand, lies our enduring dependence on foreign propulsion systems for ships, aircraft and submarines. Clearly, ISRO did something fundamentally correct that other parts of India’s engineering ecosystem did not.
A Cryogenic Triumph Amid Sanctions
The story of India’s cryogenic engine began in 1994, in the shadow of sanctions imposed by the United States. When the US blocked the Indo-Russian cryogenic technology transfer deal, India could have easily retreated. Under the visionary leadership within ISRO, India invested heavily in building the CE-20 engine from scratch [1][3]. It was a massive national effort integrating materials science, thermodynamics, electronics, and just sheer willpower. The result was a high-performance engine that operates on liquid hydrogen and oxygen to produce the thrust needed to place satellites in geostationary orbit [4]. There were serious attempts by unknown powers to sabotage this indigenous effort by framing space scientists in fraudulent cases. Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was falsely implicated in a 1994 espionage case, tortured, and arrested for allegedly selling space secrets. The Supreme Court declared him innocent in 2018, citing a conspiracy to damage India’s space program, leading to a CBI probe into officials who framed him…….”
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