The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the

national space agency This is a list of government agency, government agencies engaged in activities related to outer space and space exploration. As of 2022, 77 different government space agencies are in existence, 16 of which have launch capabilities. Six govern ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, headquartered in

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. It operates under the

Department of Space The Department of Space is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space program. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space program und ...

(DOS) which is directly overseen by the

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India ( IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of th ...

, while the Chairman of ISRO acts as the executive of DOS as well. ISRO is India's primary agency for performing tasks related to space-based applications,

space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by uncrewed rob ...

and the development of related technologies. It is one of six government space agencies in the world which possess full launch capabilities, deploy cryogenic engines, launch extraterrestrial missions and operate large fleets of artificial satellites. The

Indian National Committee for Space Research The Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was set up by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in 1962 to formulate the Indian Space Programme. At the time, the committee was part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. The committee too ...

(INCOSPAR) was established by

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

under the

Department of Atomic Energy The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ''Paramāṇu Ūrjā Vibhāga'') is a department with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. DAE was established in 1954 by a Presidential Or ...

(DAE) in 1962, on the urging of scientist

Vikram Sarabhai Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (12 August 1919 – 30 December 1971) was an Indian physicist and astronomer who initiated space research and helped develop nuclear power in India. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1966 and the Padma Vibhus ...

, recognising the need in space research. INCOSPAR grew and became ISRO in 1969, within DAE. In 1972, the government of India set up a Space Commission and DOS, bringing ISRO under it. The establishment of ISRO thus institutionalised space research activities in India. It since then has been managed by DOS, which governs various other institutions in India in the domain of astronomy and space technology. ISRO built India's first

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

, Aryabhata, which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1975. In 1980, ISRO launched satellite RS-1 onboard its own SLV-3, making India the seventh country to be capable of undertaking orbital launches. SLV-3 was followed by ASLV, which was subsequently succeeded by development of many medium-lift launch vehicles, rocket engines, satellite systems and networks enabling the agency to launch hundreds of domestic and foreign satellites and various deep space missions for

. ISRO has the world's largest constellation of remote-sensing satellites and operates the GAGAN and NAVIC

satellite navigation A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location ( longitude, latitude, and altitude/ elevation) to hi ...

systems. It has sent two missions to the Moon and one to Mars. Goals in near future include expanding satellites fleet, landing a rover on Moon, sending humans into space, development of a semi-cryogenic engine, sending more unmanned missions to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

and Sun and deployment of more space telescopes in orbit to observe cosmic phenomena and outerspace beyond the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

. Long-term plans include development of reusable launchers, heavy and super heavy launch vehicles, deploying a

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station ...

, sending exploration missions to external planets like

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of Cronu ...

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...

and asteroids and manned missions to moons and planets. ISRO's programs have played a significant role in the socio-economic development of India and have supported both civilian and military domains in various aspects including disaster management, telemedicine and navigation and reconnaissance missions. ISRO's spin off technologies also have founded many crucial innovations for India's engineering and medical industries.

History

Formative years

Modern space research in India can be traced to the 1920s, when scientist S. K. Mitra conducted a series of experiments sounding of the ionosphere through ground-based radio in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. Later, Indian scientists like C.V. Raman and

Meghnad Saha Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) was an Indian astrophysicist who developed the Saha ionization equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars. His work allowed astronomers to accurately relate the s ...

contributed to scientific principles applicable in space sciences. After 1945, important developments were made in coordinated space research in India by two scientists:

—founder of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad—and Homi Bhabha, who established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945. Initial experiments in space sciences included the study of cosmic radiation, high altitude and airborne testing, deep underground experimentation at the Kolar mines—one of the deepest mining sites in the world—and studies of the upper atmosphere. These studies were done at research laboratories, universities, and independent locations. In 1950, the

(DAE) was founded with Bhabha as its

secretary A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a ...

. It provided funding for space research throughout India. During this time, tests continued on aspects of

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...

and the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magneti ...

, a topic that had been studied in India since the establishment of the Colaba Observatory in 1823. In 1954, the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) was established in the foothills of the Himalayas. The Rangpur Observatory was set up in 1957 at

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate public state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918 , He released a farman to establish OSMANIA UNIVERSITY on the day of 28 August 1918. ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

. Space research was further encouraged by the government of India. In 1957, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

launched Sputnik 1 and opened up possibilities for the rest of the world to conduct a space launch. The

(INCOSPAR) was set up in 1962 by Prime Minister

on the urging of

. There was no dedicated ministry for the space program initially and all activities of INCOSPAR relating to space technology continued to function within DAE. IOFS officers were drawn from the indian Ordnance Factories to harness their knowledge of propellants and advanced light materials used to build rockets.

H.G.S. Murthy Holenarasipuram Govindrao Srinivasa Murthy was an IOFS officer and a space scientist. He was known as one of the "Seven Pioneers of the Indian Space Programme".Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, where sounding rockets were fired, marking the start of upper atmospheric research in India. An indigenous series of sounding rockets named Rohini was subsequently developed and started undergoing launches from 1967 onwards. Waman Dattatreya Patwardhan, another IOFS officer, developed the propellant for the rockets.

1970s and 1980s

Under the government of Indira Gandhi, INCOSPAR was superseded by ISRO. Later in 1972, a space commission and

(DOS) were set up to oversee space technology development in India specifically and ISRO was brought under DOS, institutionalising space research in India and forging the Indian space program into its existing form. India joined the Soviet Interkosmos program for space cooperation and got its first satellite Aryabhatta in orbit through a Soviet rocket. Efforts to develop an orbital launch vehicle began after mastering sounding rocket technology. The concept was to develop a launcher capable of providing sufficient velocity for a mass of to enter

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

. It took 7 years for ISRO to develop Satellite Launch Vehicle capable of putting into a orbit. An

SLV Launch Pad Satish Dhawan Space Centre - SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range - SHAR) is a rocket launch centre (spaceport) operated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. Sriharikota R ...

, ground stations, tracking networks, radars and other communications were set up for a launch campaign. The SLV's first launch in 1979 carried a Rohini technology payload but could not inject the satellite into its desired orbit. It was followed by a successful launch in 1980 carrying a Rohini Series-I satellite, making India the seventh country to reach Earth's orbit after the USSR, the US, France, the UK, China and Japan. RS-1 was the third Indian satellite to reach orbit as Bhaskara had been launched from the USSR in 1979. Efforts to develop a medium-lift launch vehicle capable of putting class spacecrafts into

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it ...

had already begun in 1978. They would later lead to the development of PSLV. The SLV-3 later had two more launches before discontinuation in 1983. ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) was set up in 1985 and started working on a more powerful engine,

Vikas Vikas means expanding, progress or development in Sanskrit. It is often used as a masculine Indian given name, given name in Greater India. You would find people with this name mostly in North Indian states. Vikas and Pragati both means developmen ...

, based upon the French

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

. Two years later, facilities to test liquid fueled rocket engines were established and development and testing of various rocket engines thrusters began. At the same time, another solid fueled rocket Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle based upon SLV-3 was being developed, and technologies to launch satellites into geostationary orbit (GTO). ASLV had limited success and multiple launch failures; it was soon discontinued. Alongside, technologies for the Indian National Satellite System of communication satellites and the Indian Remote Sensing Programme for earth observation satellites were developed and launches from overseas initiated. The number of satellites eventually grew and the systems were established as among the largest satellite constellations in the world, with multi-band communication, radar imaging, optical imaging and meteorological satellites.

1990s and early 21st century

The arrival of PSLV in 1990s became a major boost for the Indian space program. With the exception of its first flight in 1994 and two partial failures later, PSLV had a streak of more than 50 successful flights. PSLV enabled India to launch all of its

satellites, small payloads to GTO and hundreds of foreign satellites. Along with the PSLV flights, development of a new rocket, a

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) is an expendable launch system operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). GSLV was used in fourteen launches from 2001 to 2021. Even though GSLV Mark III shares the name, it is an ...

(GSLV) was going on. India tried to obtain upper-stage cryogenic engines from Russia's Glavkosmos but was blocked by the US from doing so. As a result, KVD-1 engines were imported from Russia under a new agreement which had limited success and a project to develop indigenous cryogenic technology was launched in 1994, taking two decades to reach fulfillment. A new agreement was signed with Russia for seven KVD-1 cryogenic stages and a ground mock-up stage with no technology transfer, instead of five cryogenic stages along with the technology and design in the earlier agreement. These engines were used for the initial flights and were named GSLV Mk.1. ISRO was under US government sanctions between 6 May 1992 to 6 May 1994. After the United States refused to help India with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology during the

Kargil war The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referre ...

, ISRO was prompted to develop its own satellite navigation system IRNSS which it is now expanding further. In 2003, when China sent humans into space, Prime Minister

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

urged scientists to develop technologies to land humans on the Moon and programs for lunar, planetary and crewed missions were started. ISRO launched Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, purportedly the first probe to verify the presence of water on the Moon and the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013, the first Asian spacecraft to enter Martian orbit; India was the first country to succeed at that on its first attempt. Subsequently, the cryogenic upper stage for GSLV rocket became operational, making India the sixth country to have full launch capabilities. A new heavier-lift launcher GSLV Mk III was introduced in 2014 for heavier satellites and future human space missions.

Agency logo

ISRO did not have an official logo until 2002. The one adopted consists of an orange arrow shooting upwards attached with two blue coloured satellite panels with the name of ISRO written in two sets of text, orange-coloured

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the a ...

on the left and blue-coloured English in the Prakrta typeface on the right.

Goals and objectives

ISRO is the national space agency of India for the purpose of all space-based applications like reconnaissance, communications and doing research. It undertakes the design and development of space rockets, satellites, explores upper atmosphere and deep space exploration missions. ISRO also has incubated its technologies in India's private space sector, boosting its growth. Sarabhai said in 1969: The former

president of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Mur ...

, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, said: India's economic progress has made its space programme more visible and active as the country aims for greater

self-reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false co ...

in space technology. In 2008, India launched as many as 11satellites, including nine from other countries, and went on to become the first nation to launch 10satellites on onerocket. ISRO has put into operation two major satellite systems: the Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) for communication services, and the Indian Remote Sensing Programme (IRS) satellites for management of natural resources.

Organisation structure and facilities

Department of Space (India) - organization chart

ISRO is managed by the DOS, which itself falls under the authority of the Space Commission and manages the following agencies and institutes: * Indian Space Research Organisation * Antrix Corporation – The marketing arm of ISRO, Bengaluru * Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad * National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), Gadanki,

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...

* NewSpace India Limited – Commercial wing, Bengaluru * North-Eastern Space Applications Centre (NE-SAC), Umiam * Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram – India's space university

Research facilities

Test facilities

Construction and launch facilities

Tracking and control facilities

Human resource development

Antrix Corporation Limited (Commercial Wing)

Set up as the marketing arm of ISRO, Antrix's job is to promote products, services and technology developed by ISRO.

NewSpace India Limited (Commercial Wing)

Set up for marketing spin-off technologies, tech transfers through industry interface and scale up industry participation in the space programmes.

Space Technology Incubation Centre

ISRO has opened Space Technology Incubation Centres (S-TIC) at premier technical universities in India which will incubate startups to build applications and products in tandem with the industry and would be used for future space missions. The S-TIC will bring the industry, academia and ISRO under one umbrella to contribute towards research and development (R&D) initiatives relevant to the Indian Space Programme. S-TICs are at the National Institute of Technology, Agartala serving for east region, National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar for the north region, and the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli for the south region of India.

Advance Space Research Group

Like NASA funded

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA ...

(JPL) managed by

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

(Caltech), ISRO with Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) implemented a joint working framework in 2021 in which an Empowered Overseeing Committee (EOC) under Capacity Building Programme Office (CBPO) of ISRO located in Bengaluru will approve all short, medium and long term space research projects of common interest. In return, an Advance Space Research Group (ASRG) formed at IIST under the guidance of EOC will have full access to ISRO facilities. The primary aim is to transform IIST into a premier space research and engineering institute by 2028–2030 that can lead future space exploration missions of ISRO.

Directorate of Space Situational Awareness and Management

To reduce dependency on North America Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) for space situational awareness and protect the civilian and military assets, ISRO is setting up telescopes and radars in four locations to cover each direction.

Leh Leh () ( lbj, ) is the joint capital and largest city of Ladakh, a union territory of India. Leh, located in the Leh district, was also the historical capital of the Kingdom of Ladakh, the seat of which was in the Leh Palace, the former ...

, Mount Abu and Ponmudi were selected to station the telescopes and radars that will cover North, West and South of Indian territory. The last one will be in

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

to cover the entire eastern region. Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota already supports Multi-Object Tracking Radar (MOTR). All the telescopes and radars will come under Directorate of Space Situational Awareness and Management (DSSAM) in Bengaluru. It will collect tracking data on inactive satellites and will also perform research on active debris removal, space debris modelling and mitigation. For early warning, ISRO began a ₹400 crore (4 billion; US$53 million) project called Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis (NETRA). It will help the country track

atmospheric entry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the ...

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons ...

(ICBM),

anti-satellite weapon Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic or tactical purposes. Several nations possess operational ASAT systems. Although no ASAT system has been utilised in warfare, a few ...

and other space-based attacks. All the radars and telescopes will be connected through NETRA. The system will support

remote Remote may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Remote'' (1993 film), a 1993 movie * ''Remote'' (2004 film), a Tamil-language action drama film * ''Remote'' (album), a 1988 album by Hue & Cry * Remote (band), ambient chillout band * ' ...

and scheduled operations. NETRA will follow the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IASDCC) and

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is an office of the U.N. Secretariat that promotes and facilitates peaceful international cooperation in outer space. It works to establish or strengthen the legal and regulatory framew ...

(UNOSA) guidelines. The objective of NETRA is to track objects at a distance of in GTO. India signed a memorandum of understanding on the Space Situational Awareness Data Sharing Pact with the US in April 2022. It will enable

to collaborate with the Combined Space Operation Center (CSpOC) to protect the space-based assets of both nations from natural and man-made threats. On 11 July 2022, ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM) at Space Situational Awareness Control Centre, in Peenya was inaugurated by

Jitender Singh Jitender may refer to: * Jitender Singh Malik, Indian politician; * Jitender Singh Tomar, Indian politician; * Jitender Kumar (boxer, born 1988) Jitender Kumar (born 18 July 1988) is an Indian flyweight boxer. He won the bronze medal in the f ...

. It will help provide information on on-orbit collision, fragmentation, atmospheric re-entry risk, space-based strategic information, hazardous asteroids, and space weather forecast. IS4OM will safeguard all the operational space assets, identify and monitor other operational spacecrafts with close approaches which have overpasses over

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India ...

and those which conduct intentional manoeuvres with suspicious motives or seek re-entry within

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

Other facilities

* Balasore Rocket Launching Station (BRLS) –

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sc ...

* Bhaskaracharya Institute For Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar *

Human Space Flight Centre The Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) is a body under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to coordinate the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The agency will be responsible for implementation of the ''Gaganyaan'' project. The first c ...

(HSFC), Bengaluru * Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) * Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) * Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) * Integrated Space Cell * Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) * ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) – Thiruvananthapuram * Master Control Facility * National Deep Space Observation Centre (NDSPO) * Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres (RRSSC)

General satellite programmes

Since the launch of Aryabhata in 1975, a number of satellite series and constellations have been deployed by Indian and foreign launchers. At present, ISRO operates one of the largest constellations of active communication and earth imaging satellites for military and civilian uses.

The IRS series

The Indian Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) are India's earth observation satellites. They are the largest collection of remote sensing satellites for civilian use in operation today, provideing remote sensing services. All the satellites are placed in polar

(except GISATs) and provide data in a variety of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions to enable several programmes to be undertaken relevant to national development. The initial versions are composed of the 1 ( A, B, C, D) nomenclature while the later versions were divided into sub-classes named based on their functioning and uses including Oceansat, Cartosat, HySIS, EMISAT and ResourceSat etc. Their names were unified under the prefix "EOS" regardless of functioning in 2020. They support a wide range of applications including optical, radar and electronic

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

for Indian agencies, city planning, oceanography and environmental studies.

The INSAT series

The Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) is the country's telecommunication system. It is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites built and launched by ISRO to satisfy the telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology and search-and-rescue needs. Since the introduction of the first one in 1983, INSAT has become the largest domestic communication system in the

Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Pacific Isla ...

Region. It is a joint venture of DOS, the Department of Telecommunications,

India Meteorological Department The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. IMD is headquart ...

All India Radio All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All ...

and

Doordarshan Doordarshan (abbreviated as DD; Hindi: , ) is an Indian public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of Prasar Bharati's two divisions. One of India's largest b ...

. The overall coordination and management of INSAT system rests with the Secretary-level INSAT Coordination Committee. The nomenclature of the series was changed to " GSAT" from "INSAT", then further changed to "CMS" from 2020 onwards. These satellites have been used by the

Indian Armed Forces The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by ...

as well. GSAT-9 or "SAARC Satellite" provides communication services for India's smaller neighbors.

Gagan Satellite Navigation System

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided to implement an indigenous Satellite-Based Regional GPS Augmentation System also known as Space-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) as part of the Satellite-Based Communications, Navigation, Surveillance and Air Traffic Management plan for civil aviation. The Indian SBAS system has been given the acronym GAGAN – GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation. A national plan for satellite navigation including implementation of a Technology Demonstration System (TDS) over Indian airspace as a

proof of concept Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...

has been prepared jointly by

Airports Authority of India The Airports Authority of India, or AAI, is a public sector enterprise under the ownership of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing civil aviation infrastruc ...

and ISRO. The TDS was completed during 2007 with the installation of eight Indian Reference Stations at different airports linked to the Master Control Centre located near

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC)

IRNSS with an operational name NavIC is an independent regional navigation satellite system developed by India. It is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to from its borders, which is its primary service area. IRNSS provides two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS), providing a position accuracy of better than in the primary service area.

Other satellites

Kalpana-1 (MetSat-1) was ISRO's first dedicated meteorological satellite. Indo-French satellite SARAL on 25 February 2013. SARAL (or "Satellite with ARgos and AltiKa") is a cooperative altimetry technology mission, used for monitoring the oceans' surface and sea levels. AltiKa measures ocean surface topography with an accuracy of , compared to on average using altimeters, and with a spatial resolution of .

Launch vehicles

During the 1960s and 1970s, India initiated its own launch vehicles owing to geopolitical and economic considerations. In the 1960s–1970s, the country developed a sounding rocket, and by the 1980s, research had yielded the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 and the more advanced Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), complete with operational supporting infrastructure.

Satellite Launch Vehicle

Stamp of India - 1981 - Colnect 505879 - Launch of Rohini Satellite

The Satellite Launch Vehicle (known as SLV-3) was the first space rocket to be developed by India. The initial launch in 1979 was a failure followed by a successful launch in 1980 making India the sixth country in world with orbital launch capability. The development of bigger rockets began afterwards.

Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle

Augmented or Advanced Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) was another small launch vehicle released in 1980s to develop technologies required to place satellites into geostationary orbit. ISRO did not have adequate funds to develop ASLV and PSLV at once. Since ASLV suffered repeated failures, it was dropped in favour of a new project.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV is the first medium-lift launch vehicle from India which enabled India to launch all its remote-sensing satellites into

. PSLV had a failure in its maiden launch in 1993. Besides two other partial failures, PSLV has become the primary workhorse for ISRO with more than 50 launches placing hundreds of Indian and foreign satellites into orbit. Decade-wise summary of PSLV launches:

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)

was envisaged in 1990s to transfer significant payloads to geostationary orbit. ISRO initially had a great problem realising GSLV as the development of CE-7.5 in India took a decade. The US had blocked India from obtaining cryogenic technology from Russia, leading India to develop its own cryogenic engines. Decade-wise summary of GSLV Launches:

Launch Vehicle Mark-3

GSLV-Mk III-D1 being moved from Vehicle Assembly Building to second launch pad

Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM 3), previously known as GSLV Mk3, is the heaviest rocket in operational service with ISRO. Equipped with a more powerful cryogenic engine and boosters than GSLV, it has significantly higher playload capacity and allows India to launch all its communication satellites. LVM3 is expected to carry India's first crewed mission to space and will be the testbed for SCE-200 engine which will power India's heavy lift rockets in future. Decade-wise summary of LVM 3 launches:

SSLV

The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is a small-lift launch vehicle developed by the ISRO with payload capacity to deliver to

() or to

() for launching small satellites, with the capability to support multiple orbital drop-offs. Decade-wise summary of SSLV launches:

Human Spaceflight Programme

The first proposal to send humans into space was discussed by ISRO in 2006, leading to work on the required infrastructure and spacecraft. The trials for crewed space missions began in 2007 with the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE), launched using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, and safely returned to earth 12 days later. In 2009, the Indian Space Research Organisation proposed a budget of for its human spaceflight programme. An uncrewed demonstration flight was expected after seven years from the final approval and a crewed mission was to be launched after seven years of funding. A crewed mission initially was not a priority and left on the backburner for several years. A space capsule recovery experiment in 2014 and a pad abort test in 2018 were followed by Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

's announcement in his 2018 Independence Day address that India will send astronauts into space by 2022 on the new ''

Gaganyaan Gaganyaan (Sanskrit IAST: ''gagan-yāna'', ) is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgrad ...

'' spacecraft. To date, ISRO has developed most of the technologies needed, such as the crew module and crew escape system, space food, and life support systems. The project would cost less than 100 billion (US$1.3 billion) and would include sending two or three Indians to space, at an altitude of , for at least seven days, using a GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle.

Astronaut training and other facilities

The newly established

(HSFC) will coordinate the IHSF campaign. ISRO will set up an astronaut training centre in Bangalore to prepare personnel for flights in the crewed vehicle. It will use simulation facilities to train the selected astronauts in rescue and recovery operations and survival in

microgravity The term micro-g environment (also μg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is more or less synonymous with the terms '' weightlessness'' and ''zero-g'', but emphasising that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small (on the ...

, and will undertake studies of the radiation environment of space. ISRO had to build

centrifuges A centrifuge is a device that uses centrifugal force to separate various components of a fluid. This is achieved by spinning the fluid at high speed within a container, thereby separating fluids of different densities (e.g. cream from milk) or ...

to prepare astronauts for the acceleration phase of the launch. Existing launch facilities at Satish Dhawan Space Centre will have to be upgraded for the Indian human spaceflight campaign.

and Glavcosmos signed an agreement on 1 July 2019 for the selection, support, medical examination and space training of Indian astronauts. An ISRO Technical Liaison Unit (ITLU) was to be set up in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

to facilitate the development of some key technologies and establishment of special facilities which are essential to support life in space. Four

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...

personnel finished training at

Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC; Russian: Центр подготовки космонавтов имени Ю. А. Гагарина) is a Russian training facility responsible for trai ...

in March 2021.

Crewed spacecraft

ISRO is working towards an

orbital Orbital may refer to: Sciences Chemistry and physics * Atomic orbital * Molecular orbital * Hybrid orbital Astronomy and space flight * Orbit ** Earth orbit Medicine and physiology * Orbit (anatomy), also known as the ''orbital bone'' * Orbito ...

crewed spacecraft that can operate for seven days in

. The spacecraft, called ''

'', will be the basis of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being developed to carry up to three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with a rendezvous and docking capability. In its first crewed mission, ISRO's largely autonomous spacecraft will orbit the Earth at altitude for up to seven days with a two-person crew on board. , the crewed mission is planned to be launched on ISRO's GSLV Mk III in 2023.

Space station

India plans to build a

as a follow-up programme to ''

''. ISRO chairman

K. Sivan Kailasavadivoo Sivan (born 14 April 1957) is an Indian space scientist who served as the Secretary of the Department of Space and chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation and Space Commission. He has previously served as the Director o ...

has said that India will not join the International Space Station programme and will instead build a space station on its own. It is expected to be placed in a low Earth orbit at altitude and be capable of harbouring three humans for 1520 days. The rough time-frame is five to seven years after completion of the ''Gaganyaan'' project.

Planetary sciences and astronomy

ISRO and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research have operated a balloon launch base at Hyderabad since 1967. Its proximity to the geo-magnetic equator, where both primary and secondary

cosmic ray Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our ow ...

fluxes are low, makes it an ideal location to study diffuse cosmic X-ray background. ISRO played a role in the discovery of three species of bacteria in the upper stratosphere at an altitude between . The bacteria, highly resistant to ultra-violet radiation, are not found elsewhere on Earth, leading to speculation on whether they are extraterrestrial in origin. They are considered

extremophile An extremophile (from Latin ' meaning "extreme" and Greek ' () meaning "love") is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e. environments that make survival challenging such as due to extreme tempe ...

s, and named as ''Bacillus isronensis'' in recognition of ISRO's contribution in the balloon experiments, which led to its discovery, ''Bacillus aryabhata'' after India's celebrated ancient astronomer Aryabhata and ''

Janibacter hoylei ''Janibacter hoylei'' is a species of Gram positive, aerobic, bacterium. The species was initially isolated from cryovials that sampled high altitude air between 20 and 41 km above sea level. The species was first described in 2009, and the ...

'' after the distinguished astrophysicist Fred Hoyle.

Astrosat

Launched in 2015, Astrosat is India's first dedicated multi-wavelength

space observatory A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, OAO-2 launch ...

. Its observation study includes

active galactic nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not prod ...

, hot

white dwarfs A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes ...

, pulsations of

pulsars A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

, binary star systems, and

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical obj ...

s located at the centre of the

galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

Extraterrestrial exploration

Lunar exploration

Chandryaan () are India's series of lunar exploration spacecraft. The initial mission included an orbiter and controlled impact probe while later missions include landers, rovers and sampling missions. ;Chandrayaan-1 CY1 2007 (cropped)

Chandrayaan-1 was India's first mission to the Moon. The robotic lunar exploration mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor called the Moon Impact Probe. ISRO launched it using a modified version of the PSLV on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. It entered lunar orbit on 8 November 2008, carrying high-resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies. During its 312-day operational period (two years were planned), it surveyed the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and three-dimensional topography. The polar regions were of special interest, as they had possible

ice Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...

deposits. Chandrayaan-1 carried 11 instruments: five Indian and six from foreign institutes and space agencies (including

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1 ...

, the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; bg, Българска академия на науките, ''Balgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated ''БАН'') is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy ...

, Brown University and other European and North American institutions and companies), which were carried for free. The mission team was awarded the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of ...

SPACE 2009 award, the

International Lunar Exploration Working Group The International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) is a public forum sponsored by the world's space agencies to support "international cooperation towards a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the Moon - our natural satell ...

's International Co-operation award in 2008, and the National Space Society's 2009 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category. ;Chandrayaan-2 Chandrayaan-2, the second mission to the Moon, which included an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was launched on a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV-MkIII) on 22 July 2019, consisting of a lunar orbiter, the Vikram lander, and the Pragyan lunar rover, all developed in India. It was the first mission meant to explore the little-explored lunar south pole region. The objective of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was to land a robotic rover to conduct various studies on the lunar surface. The ''Vikram'' lander, carrying the ''Pragyan'' rover, was scheduled to land on the near side of the Moon, in the south polar region at a latitude of about 70° S at approximately 1:50 am(IST) on 7 September 2019. However, the lander deviated from its intended trajectory starting from an altitude of , and

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", and ' ...

was lost seconds before touchdown was expected. A review board concluded that the crash-landing was caused by a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

glitch.How did Chandrayaan 2 fail? ISRO finally has the answer.
Mahesh Guptan, ''The Week''. 16 November 2019. The lunar orbiter was efficiently positioned in an optimal lunar orbit, extending its expected service time from one year to seven. There will be another attempt to soft-land on the Moon in 2023, without an orbiter.

Mars exploration

;Mars Orbiter Mission ''(MOM)'' or ''(Mangalyaan-1)'' Mars Orbiter Mission - India - ArtistsConcept

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally known as ''Mangalyaan''(lit. 'Marscraft'), was launched into Earth

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and has entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. India thus became the first country to have a space probe enter Mars orbit on its first attempt. It was completed at a record low cost of $74 million. MOM was placed into Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. The spacecraft had a launch mass of , with of five scientific instruments as payload. The National Space Society awarded the Mars Orbiter Mission team the 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category.

Future projects

ISRO is developing and operationalising more powerful and less pollutive rocket engines so it can eventually develop much heavier rockets. It also plans to develop electric and nuclear propulsion for satellites and spacecrafts to reduce their weight and extend their service lives. Long-term plans may include crewed landings on Moon and other planets as well.

Launch vehicles and engines

Semi-cryogenic engine

SCE-200 is a rocket-grade

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning " wax", and was reg ...

(dubbed "ISROsene") and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an a ...

(LOX)-based semi-cryogenic rocket engine inspired by RD-120. The engine will be less polluting and far more powerful. When combined with the GSLV Mark III, it will boost its payload capacity; it will be clustered in future to power India's heavy rockets.

Methalox engine

Reusable

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ear ...

and LOX-based engines are under development. Methane is less pollutive, leaves no residue and hence the engine needs very little refurbishment. The LPSC began cold flow tests of engine prototypes in 2020.

Modular heavy rockets

ISRO is studying heavy (HLV) and

super-heavy lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle can lift to low Earth orbit more than by United States (NASA) classification or by Russian classification. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lif ...

s (SHLV). Modular launchers are being designed, with interchangeable parts, to reduce production time. A capacity HLV and an SHLV capable of delivering into orbit have been mentioned in statements and presentations from ISRO officials. The agency intends to develop a launcher in the 2020s which can carry nearly to geostationary transfer orbit, nearly four times the capacity of the existing GSLV Mark III. A rocket family of five medium to heavy-lift class modular rockets described as either "Unified Modular Launch Vehicles" (UMLV) or " Unified Launch Vehicles" (ULV) are being planned which will share parts and will replace ISRO's existing PSLV, GSLV and LVM3 rockets completely. The rocket family will be powered by SCE-200 cryogenic engine and will have a capacity of lifting from to to geostationary transfer orbit.

Reusable launchers

There have been two reusable launcher projects ongoing at ISRO. One is the ADMIRE test vehicle, conceived as a

VTVL Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. The most widely known and commercially successful VTVL rocket is SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage. VTVL technologies were deve ...

system and another is RLV-TD programme, being run to develop a spacecraft similar to the American

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

which will be launched vertically but land like a plane. To realise a fully re-usable two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch vehicle, a series of technology demonstration missions have been conceived. For this purpose, the winged Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (

RLV-TD RLV-TD is India's first uncrewed flying testbed developed for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstration Programme. It is a scaled down prototype of an eventual two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) reus ...

) has been configured. The RLV-TD acts as a flying testbed to evaluate various technologies such as hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight, and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion. First in the series of demonstration trials was the Hypersonic Flight Experiment (HEX). ISRO launched the prototype's test flight, RLV-TD, from the Sriharikota spaceport in February 2016. It weighs around and flew up to a height of . HEX was completed five months later. A scaled-up version of it could serve as fly-back booster stage for the winged TSTO concept. HEX will be followed by a landing experiment (LEX) and return flight experiment (REX). ;Small Satellite Launch Vehicle The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is a compact small-lift launch vehicle primarily aimed at the small satellites market. It can be quickly assembled with low power and hence allows more frequent launches. The SSLV can place in low Earth orbit and in Sun-synchronous orbit.

Spacecraft propulsion and power

;Electric thrusters India has been working on replacing conventional chemical propulsion with Hall-effect and plasma thrusters which would make spacecraft lighter. GSAT-4 was the first Indian spacecraft to carry electric thrusters, but it failed to reach orbit. GSAT-9 launched later in 2017, had

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

-based electric propulsion system for in-orbit functions of the spacecraft. GSAT-20 is expected to be the first fully electric satellite from India. ;Alpha source thermoelectric propulsion technology Radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), also called alpha source thermoelectric technology by ISRO, is a type of atomic battery which uses nuclear decay heat from radioactive material to power the spacecraft.NPE chapter 3 Radioisotope Power Generation
In January 2021, the

U R Rao Satellite Centre The U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), formerly ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) ( hi, इसरो उपग्रह केंद्र) is an Indian Space Research Organisation centre for the design, development, and construction of Indian satel ...

issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) for design and development of a 100-

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

RTG. RTGs ensure much longer spacecraft life and have less mass than solar panels on satellites. Development of RTGs will allow ISRO to undertake long-duration deep space missions to the outer planets.

Extraterrestrial probes

;Lunar exploration Chandryaan-3 is India's planned second attempt to soft-land on the Moon after the failure of Chandrayaan-2. The mission will only include a lander-rover set and will communicate with the orbiter from the previous mission. The technology demonstrated in a successful Moon landing will be used in a joint Indo-Japanese Lunar Polar Exploration Mission for sampling and analysis of lunar soil. ;Mars exploration The next Mars mission, Mars Orbiter Mission 2 or Mangalyaan 2, has been proposed for launch in 2024. The newer spacecraft will be significantly heavier and better equipped than its predecessor; it will only have an orbiter. ;Venus exploration ISRO is considering an orbiter mission to Venus called ''

Shukrayaan-1 Shukrayaan-1 () is a planned orbiter to Venus by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to study the surface and atmosphere of Venus. Funds were released in 2017 to complete preliminary studies, and solicitations for instruments have be ...

'', that could launch as early as 2023 to study the planet's atmosphere. Some funds for preliminary studies were allocated in the 2017–18 Indian budget under Space Sciences; solicitations for potential instruments were requested in 2017 and 2018. A mission to Venus is scheduled for 2025 that will include a payload instrument called Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker (VIRAL) which has been co-developed with the

Laboratoire atmosphères, milieux, observations spatiales The Laboratoire atmosphères, milieux, observations spatiales (LATMOS) is a French research laboratory of the University of Versailles - Paris-Saclay University and Sorbonne University specialized in the study of the physical and chemical proces ...

(LATMOS) under

French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

(CNRS) and

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

. ;Solar probes In 2022 ISRO plans to launch the Aditya-L1, a mission to study the Solar corona. It is the first Indian space-based solar

coronagraph A coronagraph is a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star so that nearby objects – which otherwise would be hidden in the star's bright glare – can be resolved. Most coronagraphs are intended to view t ...

to study the corona in visible and near-

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

bands. Originally planned during the heightened solar activity period in 2012, Aditya-L1 was postponed to 2021 due to the extensive work involved in its manufacture, and other technical aspects. The main objective of the mission is to study coronal mass ejections (CMEs), their properties (the structure and evolution of their magnetic fields for example), and consequently constrain parameters that affect space weather. ;Asteroids and outer solar system Conceptual studies are underway for spacecraft destined for the asteroids and

, as well, in the long term. The ideal launch window to send a spacecraft to Jupiter occurs every 33 months. If the mission to

is launched, a flyby of

would be required. Development of RTEG power might allow the agency to further undertake deeper space missions to the other outer planets.

Space telescopes and observatories

;AstroSat-2 AstroSat-2 is the successor to the Astrosat mission. ;XPoSat The X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (

XPoSat The X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) is an ISRO, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) manufactured space observatory to study Polarization (waves), polarisation of X-ray astronomy, cosmic X-rays. It was launched on 1 January 2024 on a ...

) is a planned mission to study polarisation. It is planned to have a mission life of five years and is planned to be launched in 2022.

sources in the energy range 5–30 keV. ;Exoworlds Exoworlds is a joint proposal by ISRO,

IIST Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) is a government-aided institute and deemed university for the study and research of space science, located at Valiamala, Nedumangad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. It is the first universit ...

and the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

for a space telescope dedicated for atmospheric studies of

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

s, planned for 2025.

Forthcoming satellites

Applications

Telecommunication

India uses its satellite communication network – one of the largest in the world – for applications such as land management, water resources management, natural disaster forecasting, radio networking, weather forecasting, meteorological imaging and computer communication.Bhaskaranarayana, 1738–1746 Business, administrative services, and schemes such as the National Informatics Centre (NIC) are direct beneficiaries of applied satellite technology.Bhaskaranarayana, 1738

Military

The Integrated Space Cell, under the

Integrated Defence Staff The Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) is an organisation responsible for fostering coordination and enabling prioritisation across the different branches of the Indian Armed Forces. It is composed of representatives from the Indian Army, Indian Navy ...

headquarters of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

, has been set up to utilise more effectively the country's space-based assets for military purposes and to look into threats to these assets. This command will leverage space technology including

satellites A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...

. Unlike an aerospace command, where the Air Force controls most of its activities, the Integrated Space Cell envisages cooperation and coordination between the three services as well as civilian agencies dealing with space. With 14 satellites, including GSAT-7A for exclusive military use and the rest as dual-use satellites, India has the fourth largest number of satellites active in the sky which includes satellites for the exclusive use of its air force (IAF) and

navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It include ...

.Why Isro's Gsat-7A launch is important for the Indian Air Force
, Times of India, 19 December 2018. GSAT-7A, an advanced military communications satellite built exclusively for the Air Force, is similar to the Navy's GSAT-7, and GSAT-7A will enhance the IAF's network-centric warfare capabilities by interlinking different ground radar stations, ground airbases and airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft such as the

Beriev A-50 The Beriev A-50 ( NATO reporting name: Mainstay) is a Soviet airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport. Developed to replace the Tupolev Tu-126 "Moss", the A-50 first flew in 1978. Its existence ...

Phalcon and DRDO AEW&CS. GSAT-7A will also be used by the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

's Aviation Corps for its helicopters and

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

(UAV) operations. In 2013, ISRO launched GSAT-7 for the exclusive use of the Navy to monitor the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with the satellite's 'footprint' and real-time input capabilities to Indian warships, submarines and maritime aircraft. To boost the network-centric operations of the IAF, ISRO launched GSAT-7A in December 2018. The RISAT series of radar-imaging

earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitorin ...

s is also meant for Military use. ISRO launched EMISAT on 1 April 2019. EMISAT is a electronic intelligence (

ELINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

) satellite. It will improve the situational awareness of the

by providing information and the location of hostile radars. India's satellites and satellite launch vehicles have had military spin-offs. While India's range Prithvi missile is not derived from the Indian space programme, the intermediate range Agni missile is derived from the Indian space programme's SLV-3. In its early years, under Sarabhai and Dhawan, ISRO opposed military applications for its dual-use projects such as the SLV-3. Eventually, the

Defence Research and Development Organisation The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) ( IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India ...

(DRDO)-based missile programme borrowed staff and technology from ISRO. Missile scientist A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (later elected president), who had headed the SLV-3 project at ISRO, took over as missile programme at DRDO. About a dozen scientists accompanied him, helping to design the Agni missile using the SLV-3's solid fuel first stage and a liquid-fuel (Prithvi-missile-derived) second stage. The IRS and INSAT satellites were primarily intended, and used, for civilian-economic applications, but they also offered military spin-offs. In 1996 the

temporarily blocked the use of IRS-1C by India's environmental and agricultural ministries in order to monitor ballistic missiles near India's borders. In 1997, the Air Force's "Airpower Doctrine" aspired to use space assets for surveillance and battle management.Mistry, 94–95

Academic

Institutions like the

Indira Gandhi National Open University Indira Gandhi National Open University, known as IGNOU, is a Central University located at Maidan Garhi, New Delhi, India. Named after former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, the university was established in 1985 with a budget of 20 ...

and the Indian Institutes of Technology use satellites for educational applications.Bhaskaranarayana, 1744 Between 1975 and 1976, India conducted its largest sociological programme using space technology, reaching 2,400villages through video programming in local languages aimed at educational development via ATS-6 technology developed by NASA.Bhaskaranarayana, 1737 This experiment—named Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)—conducted large-scale video broadcasts resulting in significant improvement in rural education. Education could reach remote rural areas with the help of the above programs.

Telemedicine

ISRO has applied its technology for telemedicine, directly connecting patients in rural areas to medical professionals in urban locations via satellite. Since high-quality healthcare is not universally available in some of the remote areas of India, patients in those areas are diagnosed and analysed by doctors in urban centers in real time via video conferencing. The patient is then advised on medicine and treatment, and treated by the staff at one of the 'super-specialty hospitals' per instructions from those doctors. Mobile telemedicine vans are also deployed to visit locations in far-flung areas and provide diagnosis and support to patients.

Biodiversity Information System

ISRO has also helped implement India's Biodiversity Information System, completed in October 2002. Nirupa Sen details the program: "Based on intensive field sampling and mapping using satellite remote sensing and geospatial modeling tools, maps have been made of vegetation cover on a 1: 250,000 scale. This has been put together in a web-enabled database that links gene-level information of plant species with spatial information in a BIOSPEC database of the ecological hot spot regions, namely northeastern India, Western Ghats, Western Himalayas and

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated ...

. This has been made possible with collaboration between the Department of Biotechnology and ISRO."Sen, 490

Cartography

The Indian IRS-P5 ( CARTOSAT-1) was equipped with high-resolution panchromatic equipment to enable it for cartographic purposes. IRS-P5 (CARTOSAT-1) was followed by a more advanced model named IRS-P6 developed also for agricultural applications. The CARTOSAT-2 project, equipped with single panchromatic camera that supported scene-specific on-spot images, succeeded the CARTOSAT-1 project.

Spin-offs

ISRO's research has been diverted into spin-offs to develop various technologies for other sectors. Examples include bionic limbs for people without limbs,

silica aerogel Aerogels are a class of synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas, without significant collapse of the gel structure. The result is a solid with extremely low ...

to keep Indian soldiers serving in extremely cold areas warm, distress alert transmitters for accidents, Doppler weather radar and various sensors and machines for inspection work in engineering industries.

International cooperations

ISRO has signed various formal cooperative arrangements in the form of either Agreements or Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) or Framework Agreements with

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...

, Australia,

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

, Canada,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

, China,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

, France, Germany,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, Italy, Japan,

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental coun ...

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the no ...

Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives,, ) and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is a country and archipelagic state in South Asia in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about from the A ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, Norway,

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, Portugal,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, Russia,

São Tomé and Príncipe São Tomé and Príncipe (; pt, São Tomé e Príncipe (); English: " Saint Thomas and Prince"), officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe ( pt, República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe), is a Portuguese-speaking i ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, South Africa, Spain,

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...

, Sweden, Syria,

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, the Netherlands,

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at ...

, United Kingdom, United States,

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...

and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

. Formal cooperative instruments have been signed with international multilateral bodies including

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; an ...

(ECMWF),

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT),

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

(ESA) and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Notable collaborative projects

;Chandrayaan-1 * Chandrayaan-1 also carried scientific payloads to the moon from

, Bulgarian Space Agency, and other institutions/companies in North America and Europe. ;Indo-French satellite missions ISRO has two collaborative satellite missions with France's

CNES The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is un ...

, namely Megha-Tropiques to study

water cycle The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or the hydrological cycle, is a biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly cons ...

in the tropical atmosphere and SARAL for

altimetry An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. The m ...

. A third mission consisting of an earth observation satellite with a thermal infrared imager, TRISHNA (Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High resolution Natural resource Assessment) is being planned by the two countries. ;LUPEX Lunar Polar Exploration Mission is a joint Indo-Japanese mission to study the polar surface of the Moon where India is tasked with providing soft landing technologies. ;NISAR NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a joint Indo-US radar project carrying an L Band and an S Band radar. It will be world's first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequencies. Some other notable collaborations include: * ISRO operates LUT/MCC under the international COSPAS/SARSAT Programme for Search and Rescue. * India has established a Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTE-AP) that is sponsored by the United Nations. * India is a member of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,

Cospas-Sarsat The International Cospas-Sarsat Programme is a satellite-aided search and rescue (SAR) initiative. It is organized as a treaty-based, nonprofit, intergovernmental, humanitarian cooperative of 45 nations and agencies (see infobox). It is de ...

, International Astronautical Federation, Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), International Space University, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellite (CEOS). *Contributing to planned

BRICS BRICS is an acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as " BRIC" (or "the BRICs") in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the t ...

virtual constellation for

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Ear ...

Statistics

Last updated: 24 October 2022 * Total number of foreign satellites launched by ISRO: 381 (34 countries) * Spacecraft missions: 116 * Launch missions: 86 * Student satellites: 13 * Re-entry missions: 2

Budget for the Department of Space

Controversies

S-band spectrum scam

In India,

electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of frequencies (the spectrum) of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths and photon energies. The electromagnetic spectrum covers electromagnetic waves with frequencies ranging from ...

, a scarce resource for wireless communication, is auctioned by the Government of India to telecom companies for use. As an example of its value, in 2010, 20 MHz of 3G spectrum was auctioned for . This part of the spectrum is allocated for terrestrial communication (cell phones). However, in January 2005, Antrix Corporation (commercial arm of ISRO) signed an agreement with Devas Multimedia (a private company formed by former ISRO employees and venture capitalists from the US) for lease of S band transponders (amounting to 70 MHz of spectrum) on two ISRO satellites (GSAT 6 and GSAT 6A) for a price of , to be paid over a period of 12 years. The spectrum used in these satellites (2500 MHz and above) is allocated by the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

specifically for satellite-based communication in India. Hypothetically, if the spectrum allocation is changed for utilisation for terrestrial transmission and if this 70 MHz of spectrum were sold at the 2010 auction price of the 3G spectrum, its value would have been over . This was a hypothetical situation. However, the Comptroller and Auditor-General considered this hypothetical situation and estimated the difference between the prices as a loss to the Indian Government. There were lapses on implementing official procedures. Antrix/ISRO had allocated the capacity of the above two satellites exclusively to Devas Multimedia, while the rules said it should always be non-exclusive. The

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

was misinformed in November 2005 that several service providers were interested in using satellite capacity, while the Devas deal was already signed. Also, the Space Commission was not informed when approving the second satellite (its cost was diluted so that Cabinet approval was not needed). ISRO committed to spending of public money on building, launching, and operating two satellites that were leased out for Devas. In late 2009, some ISRO insiders exposed information about the Devas-Antrix deal, and the ensuing investigations led to the deal's annulment. G. Madhavan Nair (ISRO Chairperson when the agreement was signed) was barred from holding any post under the Department of Space. Some former scientists were found guilty of "acts of commission" or "acts of omission". Devas and Deutsche Telekom demanded US$2 billion and US$1 billion, respectively, in damages. The Department of Revenue and Ministry of Corporate Affairs began an inquiry into Devas shareholding. The

Central Bureau of Investigation The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governme ...

registered a case against the accused in the Antrix-Devas deal under Section 120-B, besides Section 420 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 in March 2015 against the then executive director of Antrix Corporation, two officials of a USA-based company, a Bangalore-based private multimedia company, and other unknown officials of the Antrix Corporation or the Department of Space. Devas Multimedia started

arbitration Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) that resolves disputes outside the judiciary courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons (the 'arbitrators', 'arbiters' or ' arbitral tribunal'), which renders the ...

proceedings against Antrix in June 2011. In September 2015, the

International Court of Arbitration ICC International Court of Arbitration is an institution for the resolution of international commercial disputes. It operates under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce and consists of more than 100 arbitrators from roughly 90 c ...

of the

International Chamber of Commerce The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC; French: ''Chambre de commerce internationale'') is the largest, most representative business organization A business entity is an entity that is formed and administered as per corporate law in order ...

ruled in favour of Devas, and directed Antrix to pay US$672 million (Rs 44.35 billion) in damages to Devas. Antrix opposed the Devas plea for tribunal award in the

Delhi High Court The High Court of Delhi (IAST: ''dillī uchcha nyāyālaya'') was established on 31 October 1966, through the ''Delhi High Court Act, 1966'', with four judges, Chief Justice K. S. Hegde, Justice I. D. Dua, Justice H. R. Khanna and Justice S. ...

Notes

References

^'Additional Project Director' "Abhijeet Meshram" Saying About Chandrayan-2 at SHIKHAR DHAWAN SPACE STATION on (18 May 2019)

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * * {{Authority control Government agencies established in 1969 Rocket engine manufacturers of India Government agencies of India 1969 establishments in Mysore State Space agencies Recipients of the Gandhi Peace Prize Organisations based in Bangalore