Upcoming Space Missions by India

Upcoming Space Missions By India

After achievement of Chandrayaan 3, ISRO is about to send spacecraft to study Sun. With successful soft landing of Chandrayaan 3 on lunar South Polar Region, India became fourth country to soft land on moon’s surface, and first in the world to land on south polar region of the moon. Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover had begun their work of ‘In Situ Scientific Experiments’, which is one of the objective of this mission, and started sending data which is being analysed by ISRO now for further studies.

To know more about Chandrayaan 3, you can visit our science page where we have discussed it in details in series of articles about Chandrayaan 3: blognewstime/ScienceBlogs

In this article we will discuss some of the upcoming space missions by India in brief,

Aditya L1 Mission

Tomorrow i.e. on 2^nd September 2023, 11:50 hrs ISRO will be launching India’s first space-based solar observatory, PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission from Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Sriharikota. ‘Aditya’ means ‘Sun’ and ‘L1’ is ‘Lagrangian point 1’. The spacecraft in this mission is planned to be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian point 1 (called as L1) which is about 1.5 million km from Earth. The point here to be noted that, Earth – Sun distance is approximately 150 million km, we can say that, spacecraft in this mission will be placed at 1% distance from Earth of total Earth – Sun distance (that means it is very close to Earth as compared to Sun).

These Lagrangian points are very significant in space technology as gravitational forces acting between two objects cancel each other out at these points and therefore can be used by spacecraft to ‘hover’ without much fuel consumption. L1 is one out of five Lagrangian point, where ISRO is planning to place spacecraft.

There are total seven payloads in this satellite to observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona).

For complete information, you can read our detailed article on Aditya L1 mission on: Aditya L1 Mission: Key Features, Launch Date, Travel Time, Payloads, Mission Objectives, Budget

ISRO has recently released images of Aditya L1 on its X handle:

PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission:
The preparations for the launch are progressing.

The Launch Rehearsal – Vehicle Internal Checks are completed.

Images and Media Registration Link https://t.co/V44U6X2L76 #AdityaL1 pic.twitter.com/jRqdo9E6oM

— ISRO (@isro) August 30, 2023

Gaganyaan Mission

Earlier aimed to launch in 2022, on the occasion of 75th Independence year, this mission is delayed for many reasons. This is India’s first crewed space mission, where ISRO is planning to launch a crew of three astronauts to an orbit of 400 km (250 miles) for a three-day mission before landing in Indian waters.

Gaganyaan will consist of two parts, the crew module (CM) and the service module (SM), which together will form the orbital module. The CM will be shaped like a truncated cone having habitable space with Earth like environment in space for the crew, which is designed to carry up to three astronauts. Gaganyaan will launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on top of the Human Rated Launch Vehicle (HRLV), a version of India’s most powerful rocket, the Launch Vehicle Mark III (LVM3) that has been modified for crewed spaceflight.

Four astronauts, pilots in the Indian Air Force, were selected for the mission. ISRO has signed contract with Russian space agency’s subsidiary for training of the astronauts for this mission. Astronauts did first part of their training in Russia in early 2020 and the remainder at ISRO’s astronaut training facility in Bengaluru.

Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh stated that trials for the mission are set to commence in October 2023.

For further details about Gaganyaan mission, you can visit official website of ISRO: ISRO Official Website

Chandrayaan 4 Mission

It is also known as LUPEX (Lunar Polar Exploration) mission. In 2026, the Indian Space Agency (ISRO) and Japanese Space Entity (JAXA) aim to launch the Chandryaan-4 Mission, with key objective to explore the polar regions of the Moon for water. This will be accomplished through two essential methods, which include figuring out how much and what kind of water is available on the moon.

Chandrayaan 3 is designed to carry out in situ scientific experiments for fourteen Earth days, whereas LUPEX mission will carry out moon exploration for six months. Similar to Chandrayaan 3, this mission will also consists of Lander and Rover module, and is expected to launch from Tanegashima, Japan with help of H3 launch vehicle.

NISAR – NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) is jointly developing NISAR, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) observatory. It is designed to map the entire globe in 12 days and provide spatially and temporally consistent data for understanding changes in Earth’s ecosystems, ice mass, vegetation biomass, sea level rise, ground water and natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

NISAR will be the first radar of its kind in space to systematically map Earth, using two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimeter across. This mission will be helpful in long term for studying Earth Science, mitigate Disaster Management, improving Agriculture output, monitor climate change.

It is expected to be launched in January 2024 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre into a near-polar orbit. The mission life will be of three years.

Conclusion

With a proven track record of successful missions and a commitment to innovation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is confident to take on even more challenging missions in the coming years. From lunar exploration to interplanetary missions, upcoming space missions by India are filled with promise.

As we eagerly await the launch of these exciting missions, we can look forward to witness India’s continued contributions to the world of space exploration, inspiring generations to come.

There are other space missions such as Shukrayaan (Venus Orbiter Mission), Mangalyaan & SPADEX are in pipeline. We will discuss them in our next article.

Thank you for reading.