CHENNAI: ISRO Chairman S Somanath on Monday was on a visiting spree in Chennai, interacting with Chief Minister MK Stalin to chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa addressing students at Dr MGR Medical University.
He also said the first test flight of Mission Gaganyaan (India’s first manned space mission) will be launched on October 21 between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
Addressing the media, Somanath hailed the contributions of Tamil Nadu and thanked the Stalin government for promoting space and defence sector industries. “It is heartening that the Tamil Nadu government is building an industrial park near ISRO’s second launch complex in Kulasekharapatnam in Thoothukudi. I asked the chief minister’s support in realising the launch complex at the earliest.
Land acquisition is almost complete, and we are going through other clearances,” Somanath said and added the TN industrial corridors have been attracting a lot of space and defence industries to Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchy, which is commendable.
Later, the ISRO chief visited chess grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa’s residence and said he would be working with the nation’s space agency to promote science and technology among the young people. “We are proud we have a Pragyan (rover) on the moon, and here is Praggnanandhaa on the ground. What we did for India on the moon, he has accomplished on land. He is also going to work with us to promote space,” Somanath said.
He also visited the residence of renowned agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan, who passed away on September 28. On the maiden TV-D1 test flight under Gaganyaan project, he said the take-off was scheduled on October 21. This apart, Somanath said: “We have exploration missions. We have plans to go to Mars, Venus, again sometime to the Moon. We also have programmes to look at the climate and weather of Earth.” Some scientific missions are also in the pipeline to look at issues like aeronomy, thermal imaging, and climate change impact assessment.
Giving an update on Aditya-L1 mission, Somanath said the spacecraft is ‘very healthy’ and is on a 110-day long journey to the Lagrange point L1 and is expected to reach the intended destination by ‘middle of January.’ “It is almost 110 days of journey. We corrected a little bit of its trajectory, as early correction is important to reach L1 point. We find it is going in the right direction towards the L1 point,” he said.
Aditya-L1 was launched on September 2, and it is the first Indian space-based observatory to study Sun a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1).