Gaganyaan uncrewed orbital mission, NISAR among ISRO's key missions for 2025

Besides uncrewed orbital mission, ISRO has two GSLV missions and a commercial mission of LVM3 for a global customer scheduled in first half of this year.

Bengaluru: ISRO has begun the launch vehicle integration for Gaganyaan’s first uncrewed orbital space mission at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, which is among the most awaited of ISRO’s 2025 space missions.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Department of Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, chaired a high-level review meeting with senior ISRO officers recently in Bengaluru. Outgoing Chairman of ISRO Dr S Somnath and Incoming Chairman Dr V Narayanan were among other high-level officials present in the meeting. 

A human-rated Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (HLVM3) will launch the Orbital Module to a low-earth orbit. The Crew Module will separate from the Orbital Module, re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, perform a controlled descent before splashing down at a designated point in the sea, from where it will be recovered.

“This critical endeavour will pave the way for India’s human spaceflight program, aiming to validate systems for crew safety and recovery,” read an official statement by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Besides the uncrewed orbital mission, ISRO has two GSLV missions and a commercial mission of LVM3 for a global customer scheduled in the first half of this year.

Expected to launch in the last week of January is the GSLV-F15 mission that will carry the NVS-02 navigation satellite to augment the NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) in providing Position, Navigation and Timing services using indigenously atomic clocks.

LVM3-M5’s dedicated commercial mission to launch BlueBird Block-2 satellites under a commercial agreement between NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) and M/s AST SpaceMobile Inc., USA, is being readied for a proposed launch in March.

ISRO-NASA joint mission, NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture RADAR), is also being planned in the GSLV-F16 mission. NISAR is an advanced microwave remote sensing satellite with dual band synthetic aperture radar featuring sweep-SAR technology. This satellite will map the globe in 12 days using advanced RADAR imaging that will provide unique data regarding agriculture, climate, and the likelihood of natural disasters. 

According to the official statement, the GSLV vehicle systems are getting ready for final integration at Sriharikota and the NISAR satellite is undergoing the final phase of testing.Gaganyaan uncrewed orbital mission, NISAR among ISRO's key missions for 2025