ISRO gearing up to launch ‘exciting’ missions for rest of this year: Chairman

ISRO has lined up a series of activities over the next few months as it gears up for “exciting” missions including a GSLV launch this year, Chairman S Somanath said here on Sunday.

The space agency, in a precise textbook launch today, successfully placed seven Singaporean satellites into intended orbits on board its trusted workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Giving some insights on the future launch campaigns to be taken up by the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, Somanath said: “We are going to come back with another PSLV mission soon in the month of August or early September.”

“This year itself, we are going to have exciting missions. The PSLV is going to fly again. We are going to have the Gaganyaan test vehicle which is currently getting integrated,” he said while speaking from the Mission Control Centre.

According to ISRO, the Gaganyaan project envisages a demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an orbit of 400 kilometres for a three-day mission and bringing them back safely to Earth, by landing in Indian sea waters.

Meanwhile, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here is already bustling with activity following the launch of Chandrayaan-3 on July 14.

Scientists are currently involved in the orbit-raising manoeuvres of the spacecraft and now the stage is set for the rocket’s planned August 1 journey towards the Moon after leaving Earth’s orbit.

The technically challenging soft landing on the lunar surface is planned on August 23 at 5.47 pm.

Elaborating about the future launches by ISRO, Somanath, also the Secretary, the Department of Space said: “We are also planning to launch the SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) in its third developmental mission as well as the GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) mission for launching the INSAT-3DS. We are packed with activity this year.”

The SSLV is the sixth launch vehicle developed by ISRO and has undergone two development flights in August 2022 and in February this year.