Page 5 - Spec Tech Vol 1 Issue 07

5 launches planned in 5 months; LVM3 to

be made by industry: ISRO chairman

The Indian Space agency has 4 variants of rockets in its
fleet and all of them will be heading for space over the
next 5 months. Indicating that a busy mission schedule
lay ahead for the Indian Space Research Organization,
Chairman, Dr. S.Somanath outlined the launch line-up
and the role of private industries in building ISRO's
rockets, while speaking to WION.

"We follow the financial year - We are now getting ready
for a launch of PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle)
rocket, possibly November-end, where PSLV will be
carrying 'OceanSat', 'BhutanSat' and four customer
satellites on board. We also have to do the SSLV(Small
Satellite Launch Vehicle) mission, after making the
corrections for the failure we encountered last time" he
told WION.
Further, he said that there was another launch of the
heaviest rocket LVM3, that will be performed to loft 36
OneWeb satellites in Low Earth orbit, sometime around
January or February 2023. In addition to this, there
Image Credit: ISRO

would be a launch of the GSLV Mk2 rocket (now known
as GSLV), to orbit Next-gen 'NavIC' satellites that are
meant for Navigation purposes for India. He also said that
the agency would be attempting to perform India's
maiden mission to study the sun - Aditya-L1, before the
end of March 2023.

Effectively, this means that there would be 2 flights of
PSLV rockets, and one flight each of the SSLV, GSLV,
and LVM3, would take place by March 2023. It must also
be noted that each satellite that ISRO builds for India is
also counted as a mission in itself.
Image Credit: ISRO

Queried about the possibility of the GSLV rockets
being manufactured by the Indian private industry,
Somanath said that a manufacturing contract for five
PSLV rockets had been given to the Indian industry
(Hindustan Aeronautics Limited-Larsen& Toubro), on
an experimental basis.

"The PSLV is an experiment to see if the
manufacturing base in the country can bring out a
PSLV on their own, operate on their own, and ramp
Aditya-L1 Image Credit: ISRO

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