ISRO has declared recently that they are going to launch the third lunar mission that is Chandrayaan 3, in 2021. They also said that four people have also been selected from Indian Air Forcer, whose training will begin in Russia.
ISRO
The Indian Research Space Research Organization is the national space agency of India. It was formed on 15 August 1969. ISRO has its headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka. ISRO performs tasks related to space exploration, development of rockets, deployment of cryogenic engines, and many more.
Chairman K Sivan in has said that the Chandrayaan 3 is going very smoothly and planning to launch it next year. He has also given an estimation that the Chandrayaan 3 will cost around Rs. 250 crore.
Now discuss the significant launches in Detail,
First launch of Small Launch Vehicle
ISRO is developing a small launch satellite launch vehicle for the past few years. It is a 3 stage launch platform with a capacity of lifting 500kg to lower Earth orbit and around 300 kilograms to the sun-synchronous orbit.
Many space organizations are working on a heavy launch platform to carry humans and supply to the Moon and beyond, but ISRO is focusing more on small satellites. But these tiny satellites are more beneficial in comparison to a heavy launch platform. Firstly it will help ISRO to capture the market where the demand for small satellites is more, and secondly, it will reduce the per kilogram launch cost. According to Bryce Space and Technology’s report, 328 smallsats whose weight is around 600kg is launched in 2018. The current market value of small satellites is approximately 3.6 billion dollars, which will grow about 15 billion dollars by 2025.
Chandrayaan 3
We all know that last year Chandrayaan 2 Vikram has not been successful. But ISRO has not to loosen their hope, and they are planning to launch Chandrayaan 3 in 2020. But due to Covid-19 restriction, they were unable to do that, and they postponed the mission to 2021.
This Chandrayaan 3 will have a lander and rover lie previous one, but it does not have an orbiter, and the scientific payloads are functioning as per the requirement. ISRO Chairman has given an estimation of around Rs. 250 crore for this mission. The launch date is not final yet, but ISRO chief K Sivan has said that they are planning to launch it in late 2021 or early 2022.
Gaganyaan
The ISRO’s first human space flight to space Gangayaan, is still under development, and it is not going to launch in 2021. But the development of significant things which is related to this mission will take place this year.
Before launching this, Gangayan ISRO is planning to send three people to space for five days to seven days, and they are also planning to send two flights without any person to check and test the things before launching Gaganyaan.
Recently ISRO chief has said that one of any two missions will be taken place this year very soon. Earlier, they planned to launch it in December 2020, but due to Covid-19 restriction, they decided to postpone 2021. This mission also requires astronauts’ training, which is going to take place in Russia very soon. India has signed an agreement with Russia for cooperation on the Gaganyaan mission. Our prime minister Narendra Modi has announced this mission during his Independence speech in 2018.
X-Ray Polarimetry Satellite
ISRO is planning to launch X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite this year. The primary use of this satellite is to measure the polarization of X-ray photons from different celestial sources. There are sources like pulsars, X-ray binary, galactic cores, and many more.
This measurement will help in understanding the nature, strength, and distribution of the magnetic field of the sources. The satellite which will carry the payload is developed by the scientists of Raman Research Institute of Bengaluru. This will place the satellite in Low Earth Orbit. The satellite design has a solar array panel, POLIX related electronic packages, payload viewing axis, POLIX detector, PIM deck, and a platform module. If the mission gets successful, then this will be an excellent achievement for the ISRO.
Reuseable Launch Vehicle
ISRO conducted the first test of reusable launch vehicle Technology Demonstrator in 2016. This experiment of the hypersonic flight was successful. So for further development, ISRO is planning to conduct an experiment in which this technology demonstrator will be land autonomously after being dropped from a helicopter.
For this experiment, the Indian Air force hello will lift this technology demonstrator at the height of around 4 kilometers from the ground and release the demonstrator. This technology demonstrator will search the runway, and it will get land automatically in an airfield in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka.
SpaceX, which is lead by Elon Musk, has successfully conducted the experiment of reusable vehicles. The development of reusable vehicles is very important because it will reduce the launch cost to half of the total mission cost. ISRO was going to conduct this mission in 2020, but they could not do it because of Covid-19 restriction.
Conclusion
All of the above mission is very much necessary for the development of Space technology in India. These missions will also set an example for other space organizations. The ISRO will receive a budget of around Rs.14000 crore from the center. This is an excellent step by the center for the development of ISRO, which is ultimately beneficial for the country.
