National Space Day | India plans to launch 119 satellites in next 15 yrs: Officials

Addressing scientists, students, industry representatives and policymakers, PM Narendra Modi said, 'Beyond galaxies lies our horizons, The endless universe tells us that no frontier is the final frontier. At the policy level, there should be no final frontier in the space sector.'

New Delhi: India plans to launch 119 satellites in the next 15 years besides expanding its ground station networks to have footprints in Antarctica, Chile, Alaska and Svalbard in the Arctic for the first time, officials said on Saturday at the National Space Day celebration.

The roadmap includes 80 satellites for land and 23 for ocean and atmospheric applications. Also there will be 16 technology demonstration satellites including home-grown platforms for dual-frequency radar mission, cloud-profiling radar mission and cloud-aerosol mission for better understanding of the earth’s climate.

There will also be more deep space missions including at least five more unmanned Chandrayaan missions before an Indian set foot on the lunar surface by 2040 along a Mars lander mission in the next two decades.

Out of the five missions to the moon, only the next two have been approved and the first one to fly will be Chandrayaan-4, a sample return mission that is to take off by 2027: the same year when the first Gaganyaan will be launched. A Venus orbiter mission is also planned to be launched by March 2028.

"We have reached the moon and Mars. Now, we have to peek into deep space, where several secrets that would benefit the future of humanity lie hidden," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the National Space Day event.

Addressing scientists, students, industry representatives and policymakers, PM Modi said, "Beyond galaxies lies our horizons, The endless universe tells us that no frontier is the final frontier. At the policy level, there should be no final frontier in the space sector.”

Because of its aspirations, ISRO plans to add 11 more ground stations to its existing network of 10 such units.

Two of the new ground stations would be at Maitri, the Indian station at Antarctica while others will come up at USA, Chile, Arctic and Mauritius, as well as in Jodhpur and Guwahati.

With space-based broadband internet services becoming a popular area dominated by global players like SpaceX and OneWeb, India mulls to have its own LEO constellation with more than 140 satellites to cater to the broadband needs of big urban centres.

The space agency has showcased a life-size model of the first module of Bharatiya Antriksh Station. The 10 tonnes module is slated to be launched by 2028 and the entire Indian space station is scheduled to be in place by 2035.

Presently, there are only two orbital laboratories: the International Space Station operated by five space agencies, and China’s Taingong space station.