Union Minister Jitendra Singh apprised of ISRO’s upcoming missions

PTI, Jan 11, 2025, 8:22 AM IST

Bengaluru: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday held a review meeting with senior officers of ISRO here, during which he was briefed about the preparation for the first uncrewed orbital mission under the Gaganyaan programme, among other space missions scheduled this year.

ISRO Chairman S Somnath and chairman-designate V Narayanan and mission directors were present in the meeting.

The Union MoS in the Department of Space, was apprised of ISRO’s major upcoming space missions by the senior officers, an official release said.

ISRO has major space missions scheduled in the first half of 2025, including two Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) missions, one commercial mission of Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) for a global customer apart from the first uncrewed orbital mission of Gaganyaan, it said.

The first mission of the year, GSLV-F15/ NVS-02 will launch the second navigation satellite, NVS-02 in the NVS series, the release said. This satellite will augment the NavIC constellation in providing Position, Navigation & Timing services.

“In addition to the induction of indigenously developed Atomic clock, the NVS series also features signals in the L1 band. The integration of the launch vehicle is in the advanced stage at the launch complex in Sriharikota and the launch is scheduled during the last week of January 2025,” it added.

The launch of the ISRO-NASA joint mission, NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture RADAR) is planned in the GSLV-F16 mission, officials in the release said.

NISAR is an advanced microwave remote sensing satellite with dual band synthetic aperture radar featuring sweep-SAR technology. “This satellite will map the entire globe in 12 days. NISAR features advanced RADAR imaging that will provide unique data in regard to Earth Observations related to agriculture, likelihood of earthquakes, landslides etc., GSLV vehicle systems are getting ready for the final integration at Sriharikota and the NISAR satellite is undergoing the final phase of testing,” they said.

LVM3-M5 launch is for a dedicated commercial mission to launch BlueBird Block-2 satellites under a commercial agreement between NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) and M/s AST SpaceMobile Inc., USA.

ISRO further said LVM3 vehicle systems are available at Sriharikota and the vehicle integration has commenced for a proposed launch in March 2025.

According to the release, the minister was also informed that this year will also witness the first uncrewed orbital mission under the Gaganyaan programme wherein a Human Rated Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (HLVM3) will launch the Orbital Module to a low-earth orbit to validate the end-to-end human spaceflight mission.

“The Crew Module will be separated from the Orbital Module, re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, perform controlled descent and splash down at designated point in the sea from where it will be recovered,” it said, adding that for this mission, the launch vehicle integration has been commenced at Sriharikota and the Orbital Module is undergoing final phase of preparations.