Deep impact
Sandeep Unnithan
July 23, 2009
At around noon on July 20, history was created at a brightly-lit, completely enclosed dry dock called the Ship Building Centre in Visakhapatnam. As the waters from the harbour cascaded into the 15-metre deep dry dock, a long black shape sitting on a series of wooden blocks, stirred. With a lurch, it slowly rose, just like a sea monster.
After 11 years of construction, the Arihant (meaning destroyer of enemies), India’s first indigenous nuclearpowered submarine, was finally in the water. The three-hour ‘test undocking’ was only the dress rehearsal. The actual July 26 event will see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur breaking the auspicious coconut on the hull of the 5,000-tonne submarine, following the naval tradition where a lady launches a warship.
The momentous launch would complete a cycle which began in 1974 with the then prime minister Indira Gandhi authorising the building of a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) under the classified Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project. For over three decades, the highly classified programme has been propelled by political vigour.
Carried out under the direct supervision of successive prime ministers, it formed part of the national secrets, including the nuclear weapons programme, which each incumbent bequeathed to his successor. “The launch of the submarine puts us in an exclusive league of five other nations capable of designing and building their own nuclear submarines,” says Vice-Admiral (retired) M.K. Roy, the ATV’s first project director.
The legacy of prime ministers
The ATV project has remained under the direct supervision and control of Indian prime ministers
Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi, 1966-77 and 1980-84
Authorises building of an Nsub (SSBN) after 1974 Pokhran test. Launches ATV programme in March 1984. Signs IGA with the Soviet Union in 1984 for assistance in design and construction of an N-sub.
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi, 1984-89
Oversees ATV programme in its early years. Understood its relevance to the N-weapon programme he restarted. Became the only Indian PM to visit an N-sub, the INS Chakra, leased from Russia in 1988.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 1998-2004
Conducts N-tests, enunciates nuclear doctrine which calls for a submarine-based second-strike capability. Reopens talks with Russia for N-sub lease to train crews and assistance on the reactor. Deal for leasing one Akula-2 N-sub signed.
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh, 2004 till date
Supervises the final phase of ATV construction. Enlarges the N-sub programme with sanction for building of a new class of SSNs and SSBNs based on Russia’s Akula class for a projected fleet of 10 N-subs over the next 20 years.
A nuclear submarine is powered by a nuclear reactor which generates tremendous heat that drives a steam turbine. It is, however, one of the most complex machines on earth, the reason why only five countries have the capability. The last country to join was China, way back in August 1971.
Unlike the conventional diesel-electric submarines which have to surface to charge their batteries, nuclear submarines have unlimited underwater endurance and their speed is twice that of their conventional counterparts.
Armed with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles (SLBMs), they form the third leg of a nation’s nuclear ‘triad’ comprising air and surface-launched nuclear weapons. Over the next five years, the troika of Arihant class SSBNs, each costing Rs 3,200 crore, will make the third leg of India’s nuclear triad—a strategic underwater platform for launching nuclear weapons.
The Arihant is, for all practical purposes, a functional, fully-fitted out submarine. After this brief ceremony, the submarine is to be towed out for the first time across the naval dockyard and moored in an enclosed pier called Site Bravo—“from the maternity ward to the nursery”, as one official puts it.
Over the next few months, it will commence a series of full system harbour trials. The primary system, a nuclear reactor, generates the heat which drives the secondary system, a steam turbine which spins the submarine’s propeller, are to be tested separately.
First, the steam turbine is to be jump-started with shore-based supply. The next significant step will be starting up the submarine’s nuclear reactor where the zirconium rods in the core of the submarine’s 80 MW pressurised water reactor will be slowly raised, allowing the reactor to become critical in slow degrees. It will take around three weeks to go fully critical.
Only after all systems are tested, will the primary and secondary systems be mated. If all goes well, the submarine will be allowed to sail out to begin sea trials next year. Weapon trials, including the firing of its arsenal of 12 K-15 short range ballistic missiles, are the last stage of the trials before the submarine is finally commissioned to the navy by 2011.
The submarine will carry four of an under-development submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) ‘K-X’ with 3,500-km range, each with several warheads called multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). These missiles will enable the submarine to conduct deterrent patrols in proximity to Indian waters.
The Indian Navy is only responsible for running and maintaining the nuclear submarines. All its tasking and patrols are to be controlled by the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) headed by the prime minister. Orders will be passed to the submarine through a secure communication network. The launch of the Arihant is a major step forward in India’s quest for a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent. Its Asian rival China has 10 nuclear-powered submarines and is building an equal number, giving the Chinese navy tremendous reach into the Indian Ocean. But India has still a long way to go, says strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney.
“It will still be some years before an N-sub with SLBMs is deployed. In fact, the gaps in India’s nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis China remain glaring. If India’s nuclear deterrent was credible, Beijing wouldn’t mess with India. But the rising Chinese bellicosity suggests otherwise,” he says.
The Arihant has taken 11 years to complete. It is the first in a series of nuclear-powered submarines to be built over the next two decades. The long arduous road began in 1967 with a Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) feasibility report on nuclear propulsion. A more detailed report was presented in 1971. And after the Pokhran nuclear test of 1974, Indira Gandhi authorised a project to build a nuclear submarine which would carry a robust, survivable nuclear deterrent. It was always called a naval reactor project.
Chain of command
The decision-makers who guide the nuke submarine project
Prime minister
Heads Nuclear Command Authority. Supervises project through National Security Adviser.
Political council
Defence Minister, Finance Minister, External Affairs Minister. Decides on the funding of the project.
Executive council
National Security Adviser, Navy chief, DRDO chief, BARC chief, DG-ATV.
For a good reason though. Compacting a nuclear reactor to fit snugly within the submarine’s 10-metre diameter steel cylinder was going to be the greatest challenge. The reactor also had to go from full ahead to full astern and also from high speed to low speed. The BARC derivatives of its civilian power reactors were too large and incapable of meeting the required performance parameters. Work on the ATV began only in the 1980s with Soviet assistance.
In 1981, Indira Gandhi sent a joint navy and BARC team to visit the USSR to study an offer from the Soviet Union to design and build nuclear submarine. “She was enthused by the fact that we were getting access to so much hightechnology,” says a former project head. Months before her assassination in 1984, Indira Gandhi supervised a secret intergovernmental agreement with the Soviet Union under which India would receive training on handling a nuclear submarine and design assistance to build one.
A three-year lease was signed for acquiring an elderly Charlie-I class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine (SSGN). And the ATV project team was set up, headed by a retired vice-admiral, who was given the rank of secretary to the Government of India who and reported to the chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The first group from the navy’s nascent Submarine Design Group (SDG) which actually designed the ATV trained with Russia’s Rubin design bureau. Funds for the Rs 2,800-crore project were never a problem and were sanctioned from the cabinet secretariat, and the joint DRDO-Navy project was always a closed loop within the Prime Minister’s Office.
After Indira’s assassination, the ATV baton passed on to Rajiv Gandhi who was also the defence minister. “Rajiv understood both technology and strategy and was in favour of the project. He would keenly participate in our discussions on whether our N-submarine needed one reactor or two and the availability of enriched uranium for the reactors,” says a former project official.
In January 1988, Rajiv donned work overalls and boarded the INS Chakra as she steamed into Visakhapatnam to join the navy. He became the only Indian prime minister to board a nuclear-powered submarine. The return of the Chakra at the expiry of its lease in 1991 coincided with the implosion of the former Soviet Union, the tectonic event that nearly killed the project. Officials say there was a perceptible lack of political interest in the project on both sides: President Boris Yeltsin in Russia and prime minister Narasimha Rao. The SDG, meanwhile, began converting the Charlie-1 designs for industrial manufacture.
The Indian private sector was chosen to build the 104-metre-long prototype, dubbed S2. Larsen&Toubro (L&T) built the hull, Tata Power made the control systems and Walchandnagar Industries made the complex high pressure pumps and valves which carried saturated steam. The BARC had still not succeeded in perfecting the reactor so the Government decided to continue reactor development parallel to the construction of the first submarine.
On January 5, 1998, in a quiet ceremony at the L&T’s Hazira facility, the then DRDO chief APJ Abdul Kalam symbolically cut the first steel plate of the ATV. The project picked up speed under the NDA and during the tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the prime minister who stunned the world by bringing India out of the nuclear closet. Vajpayee, who also headed the newly-established NCA, chaired the apex committee of the ATV.
The project also had two other authorities—the political and the executive council. The project remained under the direct control of Vajpayee through his national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra. Talks for the lease of another nuclear submarine with Russia were revived.
In January 2004, India and Russia signed a secret $650-million intergovernmental agreement (IGA) for the completion and lease of one unfinished Akula class nuclear-powered attack submarine and training crews to man them. (The submarine, also called the Chakra, is undergoing trials in Russia and is expected to join the navy later this year). The crucial part of the IGAwas the assistance to build the reactor, which had delayed the project by years.
The project entered its last mile during Manmohan Singh’s first tenure in 2004. He attended several meetings and would often ask project officials, “Everything alright?” The query was a mere formality because the project received unstinted support. In 2005, the UPA Government gave an in-principle clearance for building a follow-on series of larger ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), costing nearly Rs 8,000 crore a piece or nearly twice that of the current series of ATVs and another line of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSNs) to escort them.
“If you need money, you’ll get it,” the then finance minister P. Chidambaram had assured the project team. The last and most important milestone was reached in 2006 when an indigenously-built version of the Russian VM-4 PWR, which propelled the Charlie-1, was successfully landtested and sealed into the hull of the ATV the following year.
As Singh walks towards the Arihanton July 26, he can have the satisfaction of having supervised the final chapter in India’s nuclear destiny.
