'Over 7,200 tests have been completed', says ISRO chief V. N
'Over 7,200 tests have been completed', says ISRO chief V. Narayanan
ISRO Chief V. Narayanan has said that 7,200 space mission tests have been completed as of now and 3,000 others are still pending by the Indian space agency
KOLKATA — Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chief V. Narayanan has
said that 7,200 space mission tests have been completed as of now and 3,000
others are still pending by the Indian space agency, highlighting the
importance of year 2025, which has been declared the "Gaganyaan"
year.
V. Narayanan was speaking at an event in Kolkata on
Thursday.
"This year is a very important year for us. We have
declared it Gaganyaan year. Before sending the humans, we have planned three
uncrewed missions and the first uncrewed mission is planned this year... Till
date, more than 7,200 tests have been completed and about 3,000 tests are
pending, work is going on 24 hours," he said.
"...As you are aware, this year we had major
achievements and accomplishments. On January 6, we rolled out one year's worth
of scientific data collected by the Aditya L1 spacecraft. You are all aware
that Aditya L1 is one of its kind, and India is one of the four countries to
have placed a satellite for studying the Sun. A vast wealth of scientific data
was released to the scientific community on January 6. And on January 16, we
had another very important and major accomplishment...," the ISRO Chief
told IANS.
The Gaganyaan Programme, approved in December 2018,
envisages human spaceflight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and establishing
technologies required for a long-term Indian human space exploration endeavour.
V. Narayanan expressed his happiness over the completion
of SpaDeX mission.
He asserted that ISRO "accounted for ten kilos of
fuel to do this mission".
He also told that a number of missions are planned in
2025 which includes a NASAISRO synthetic aperture radar satellite, which will
be launched by India's own launch vehicle.
"Today, we are happy to report that the SpaDeX
mission has been successfully completed. We accounted ten kilos of fuel to do
this mission, but we did it with only half the fuel and the rest of the fuel is
available, and in the coming months, you will hear that a lot of experiments
are planned... This year, a number of important missions are planned and there
is going to be a NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar satellite and it will be
launched by our own launch vehicle and we are going to have a commercial
mission and a communication satellite for commercial aspects, which we are
going to launch", he added.
According to ISRO's official website, the SpaDex mission
is a cost-effective technology demonstrator mission that uses two small
spacecraft launched by PSLV to demonstrate in-space docking.
The ISRO chief said that by December 2025, the first
uncrewed mission to be called as "Vyommitra", followed by two
uncrewed missions, will be launched by ISRO.
In contrast, the organisation targets the first human
space flight by the first quarter of 2027.
"By December this year, there will be the first
uncrewed mission, followed by two uncrewed missions, and we are targeting the
first human space flight by the first quarter of 2027. In fact, almost every
month this year, a launch is scheduled. The first uncrewed mission with a robot
called 'Vyommitra' will be launched by the end of this year," V. Narayanan
told reporters.
