Celebrating the historic milestone of its 100th mission, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan on Wednesday outlined ambitious plans for the space agency, aiming to launch another 100 missions in the next five years.
“Today we made a historical achievement,” Narayanan said following the successful launch of the GSLV-F15 rocket, which carried the NVS-02 navigation satellite into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
“The 100th launch of ISRO has been successfully carried out with the hard work and teamwork of team ISRO, ” he added.
While it took 46 years to reach this milestone, Narayanan sounded optimistic about the future. “A lot of missions are lined up for this year,” he said, noting that ISRO has already received approval for three additional satellites.
Narayanan also highlighted the upcoming Kulasekarapattinam spaceport in Tamil Nadu, set to launch micro and nano satellites. “Within two years, all facilities will be completed at the Kulasekarapattinam launch pad, after which we expect to launch all kinds of missions from there,” he added.
Wednesday’s launch marked the 17th mission of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and the 11th successful mission utilizing an indigenous cryogenic stage. This flight also marked the 8th operational flight of GSLV featuring the indigenous cryogenic stage.
The NVS-02 satellite, a crucial addition to India’s Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) system, enhances the regional navigation system designed to provide precise Position, Velocity, and Timing (PVT) services to users in India and regions extending 1,500 km beyond its borders. The launch updates NavIC from four to five satellites, improving service reliability and performance.
NavIC offers two types of services: Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS). The SPS delivers position accuracy of better than 20 meters and timing accuracy of better than 40 nanoseconds across its service area.
(With inputs from agencies)
