BENGALURU: The first of three uncrewed satellite missions planned as a part of the Gaganyaan mission will begin in December 2025. It will carry the indigenously developed half-humanoid robot 'Vyomitra' to space, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan on Sunday.
Speaking at the sidelines of the successful launch of the LVM3-M5-CMS-03 multi-band communication satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Narayanan said the coming months are packed with many such launches and experiments.
Narayanan said that 'best of teams' are working on the Gaganyaan mission and are making steady progress as expected, as over 90% work has been completed.
The first of the three uncrewed missions, as a part of the preparations for the Gaganyaan, will be launched using the LVM3 launch vehicle.
“We have done best possible work and we are supposed to accomplish three uncrewed missions before going for the crewed mission. We are working on the first uncrewed mission in which the half-humanoid- the Vyomitra is going to fly. The activities are progressing well. Most of the hardware has reached Sriharikotta and the assembly activities are progressing well,” he said.
Narayanan said the ISRO has set a target of seven launches within the next five months.
The next mission, the LVM3-M6 mission (the BlueBird-6) will be launched in the second week of December, he said. The BlueBird-6 is a 6.5-tonne customer-based broadband communication satellite, developed by US’ AST SpaceMobile. The satellite would eliminate the need for mobile towers.
It will be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. “The entire activities for the launch of this satellite are going on well,” Narayanan said.
Then, before the end of this year, the PSLV-C62 will be launched to place user-funded satellite EOS-01.
After that, the SSLV-L1 mission will be launched to place a customer satellite.
In an another important mission, 34 new technologies will be demonstrated with a PSLV vehicle placing the technology demonstration satellite.
This will be followed by the EOS-5 or GSAT-1 satellite, which will be placed by GSLV-F17 vehicle.
The space sector has been reformed based on which five PSLV vehicles were given to industry consortiums. The first vehicle has been successfully realised and we are in the process of final assembly. The first launch is also launched before the end of this financial year, he added.