2025: A busy and challenging year for ISRO
Year 2024 has been quite meaningful for the Indian space programme. Both its satellites and launch vehicles scored important successes beginning from the very first day of the year itself.
Among its achievements, the most conspicuous ones were the successful entry into its 36,000 km high final orbital home by the country’s latest ‘high throughput’ (high capacity) communication satellite GSAT-N2 in November-end.
This was followed about a week later by yet another significant success achieved by India’s trusted workhorse rocket PSLV during its 61st flight that placed two European Proba-3 satellites in the planned orbit precisely. The success further underscored India’s prowess to provide reliable commercial launch services globally.
These two events, the latest in the string of successes scored by ISRO this year have made the agency look forward to the forthcoming year with guarded optimism.
Year 2025 looks like a demanding year for ISRO, beginning with the SpaDeX or Space Docking Experiment launched on December 30. As part of this important technology demonstration, two 220 kg satellites, a ‘chaser’ and a ‘target’, are launched as independent payloads (satellites) in a single PSLV launch into a 470 km orbit, and will be made to move away from each other.
A few days later, their distance of separation will be gradually reduced before docking with each other. This will be a very critical event from the point of view of ISRO’s future programmes, including ’Chandrayaan-4’ and ’Bharatiya Antriksh Station’ (Indian Space Station), and, much later, for the extremely challenging task of landing humans on the Moon, reportedly around 2040.
In the case of Chandrayaan-4, ISRO intends to launch two separate spacecraft into the earth orbit in two different launches and dock them there before proceeding to Moon with the arduous goal of bringing precious lunar soil and rock samples back to earth. This dual launch approach to send a large moon craft is due to the relatively limited launch capability of Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3), the most powerful vehicle in ISRO’s current stable of launch vehicles.
Similarly, Bharatiya Antriksh Station (BAS) will be a large modular earth-orbiting spacecraft which enables humans to live and work in the weightless environment of earth orbit quite comfortably. This necessitates launching different modules of BAS in separate launches and making them dock in the earth orbit.
The construction and completion of BAS may be a decade away. But ISRO is now getting ready to conduct the very first launch, albeit an uncrewed one, under the ambitious Gaganyaan programme in 2025. Gaganyaan will be the country’s maiden step in the human spaceflight domain and adds a new dimension to the robust Indian space programme.
The first few launches under Gaganyaan spacecraft will be uncrewed to ensure safety and reliability following which human crew would be launched. The assembly of the ‘human rated’ (capable of safely carrying humans) LVM3 rocket that will launch the first (uncrewed) Gaganyaan spacecraft has already begun, ISRO has announced.
Over the years, satellites have shrunk in size and thus many countries, and even universities have built satellites and got them launched. But only a handful of countries have the wherewithal to design, develop, build, test, launch, manage and utilise large and capable satellites in orbit. It is a matter of pride that India is among them.
Our country has now carved out a niche for itself in the domain of space. With the Gaganyaan programme, India is endeavouring to enter the human spaceflight arena in which only Russia, the USA and China are the prominent players now.
Apart from highly visible programmes like Chandrayaan and Gaganyaan, ISRO is also poised to build and launch satellites for communications, earth observation including weather watch and navigation in the near future. This is to ensure continuity of various vital services such satellites are providing to the country.
For ISRO, busy days are ahead indeed.