{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,9]],"date-time":"2026-05-09T02:43:37Z","timestamp":1778294617956,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]],"date-time":"2025-04-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1744761600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Br J Hist Sci"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Historical accounts of the Indian space programme inevitably invoke the figure of Vikram Sarabhai (1919\u201371), credited as the father of its early development in the 1960s. A physicist by training, Sarabhai was best known for his \u2018leapfrogging\u2019 vision, into which social applications of space technology would catapult developing countries out of poverty. By interrogating official and unofficial records, speeches, cinematic productions and obituaries, this article examines how Indian leadership utilized Sarabhai\u2019s persona to substantiate the role of space flight in the nation\u2019s domestic modernization and geopolitical leverage. Especially after his death in 1971, the making of Sarabhai into the pioneer of Indian space flight allowed India to fashion a geocentric appeal specific to its space programme, which construed the benefits of low-earth-orbit satellite communication to tackle unequal development. In the 1990s, Sarabhai\u2019s image was further appropriated by international powers and actors to propagate the commercialization of satellite systems. Despite its elitist outlook and subscription to received notions of nationhood and modernity, a closer look into the public resonance of Sarabhai\u2019s persona reveals how the geocentric promise of space flight in the Indian context contributed to the formation of post-1960s astroculture globally.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/s0007087425000287","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]],"date-time":"2025-04-16T07:58:46Z","timestamp":1744790326000},"page":"261-280","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Leapfrogging India: \u00a0Vikram Sarabhai and the developmental promise of geocentric spaceflight"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"58","author":[{"given":"Haitian","family":"Ma","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Universiteit van Amsterdam"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]]},"updated-by":[{"DOI":"10.1017\/s0007087425101131","type":"correction","label":"Correction","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]],"date-time":"2025-04-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1744761600000}}],"container-title":["The British Journal for the History of Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0007087425000287","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,8]],"date-time":"2025-09-08T02:56:00Z","timestamp":1757300160000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0007087425000287\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]]},"references-count":0,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,6]]}},"alternative-id":["S0007087425000287"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/s0007087425000287","relation":{"correction":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.1017\/S0007087425101131","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["0007-0874","1474-001X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0007-0874","type":"print"},{"value":"1474-001X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,16]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science.","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}