K. Sivan says three new missions are in the pipeline
After a rather muted 2021 in terms of satellite launches, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up for a number of missions in 2022 including the launch of the first unmanned mission of Gaganyaan, its Chairman, K. Sivan said. In his New Year’s message for 2022, Mr. Sivan said ISRO had a number of missions to execute this year. These include the launch of the Earth Observation Satellites, EOS-4 and EOS-6 on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), and the EOS-02 on board the maiden flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). “[ISRO has] many test flights for Crew Escape System of Gaganyaan and launch of the first unmanned mission of Gaganyaan. In addition, we also have Chandrayaan-03, Aditya Ll, XpoSat, IRNSS and technology demonstration missions with indigenously developed advanced technologies,” he said. Design changes on Chandrayaan-3 and testing has seen huge progress, he said.Mr. Sivan said the hardware in loop test of Aditya L1 spacecraft and accommodation studies for XpoSat in the SSLV have been completed and ISRO has delivered the S-band SAR payload to NASA for NISAR [NASA-ISRO SAR] mission. The NISAR mission, scheduled for launch in 2023, is optimised for studying hazards and global environmental change and can help manage natural resources better and provide information to scientists to better understand the effects and pace of climate change. Three new space science missions are also in the pipeline, Mr. Sivan said. These include a Venus mission, DISHA –a twin aeronomy satellite mission and TRISHNA, an ISRO-CNES [Centre national d’études spatiales] mission in 2024.