100 missions in next 5 years? Why not, says ISRO

Scripting history, ISRO has travelled from the era of rocket parts being transported on cycle and bullock cart to catapulting into one of world's premier space agencies

Sriharikota, (Andhra Pradesh): ISRO may have taken 46 years to achieve the 100-mission milestone but the country's space agency is now confident of scoring the next century in relatively quicker time--half a decade.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan, who oversaw its 100th mission on Wednesday, the GSLV F-15/NVS-02 navigation satellite launch, exuded confidence the space agency could breach the 200-mark in five years.

Responding to a query whether it was possible to make 100 launches over the next 5 years, Narayanan replied in the affirmative.

"You are asking the right question. It is possible," he replied without elaborating.

Scripting history, ISRO has travelled from the era of rocket parts being transported on cycle and bullock cart, pictures that bring vivid memories, to catapulting into one of world's premier space agencies that is now into commercial launches for foreign vendors. ISRO is part of an exclusive league which has forayed into the Moon and Sun.

Earlier on Wednesday, ISRO celebrated its 100th mission with the textbook launch of NVS-02, part of the NavIC constellation that would aid in terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation and precision agriculture, among others, with the GSLV rocket injecting the payload in the desired orbit.

So far, ISRO has developed six generations of launch vehicles, with the first one taking shape under the guidance of Prof Satish Dhawan and with former President APJ Abdul Kalam as the project director, in 1979. It was SLV-3 E1/Rohini Technology payload.

Forty six years later, ISRO has lifted 548 satellites to orbits, 120 tonnes of payload including 23 tonnes of 433 foreign satellites while on its way to the 100th mission, Narayanan said.

Talking to reporters after the success of today's mission, Narayanan also dwelt on the future missions.

ISRO's collaborative effort with NASA, the NISAR mission, was likely to be launched in a couple of months.

Other projects currently engaged by the space agency include NGLV, among others.

Narayanan, Secretary, Department of Space said NASA-ISRO joint collaboration Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite mission (NISAR) was expected to be launched in a couple of months.

"It is joint collaboration between NASA and ISRO. There are two radars--one is L band Radar (developed by ISRO) and S band Radar developed by Jet Propulsion laboratory, NASA. The whole system has been integrated and tested at U R Rao Satellite Centre (in Bengaluru). It is ready to be transported from U R Rao Satellite Centre to Sriharikota" he added.

Asked on how many more navigation satellites need to be launched for India to have its own nconstellation, he said, "right now, four satellites are operational." "Today's launch is the fifth satellite (onboard the GSLV-F15). We have got approvals for three more. We are planning to launch one satellite in the next five to six months".

On the proposed rocket launches scheduled to be held from Kulasekarapatinam in Tamil Nadu, the Chairman said "now, we are building facilities and within two years upon completion of the construction activities, launches would be conducted regularly there." Narayanan said ISRO also received approvals from the Centre for building Next Generation Launch Vehicles (NGLV) which can carry payloads weighing 20 tonne to the low earth orbit or a 10 tonne payload to the Geostationary Transfer Orbit.

There was huge demand for these kind of vehicles from the industry, he said. Such launch vehicles would be used from the recently announced third launch pad which will be set up at an outlay of Rs 4,000 crore.

He said NGLVs can be used in Chandrayaan 4 and 5 missions and also in deep space missions.

Other future launches to be undertaken by ISRO include a commercial flight of LVM3 by NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) for a foreign customer, a technology demonstration satellite TDS01 mission to validate almost 34 technologies which will be launched by the first PSLV realised by industry consortium.

"Concurrently you all know, we are progressing extremely well for the preparation of the uncrewed G1 mission as part of the Gaganyaan programme and some more experiments are targeted this year," he said.