Indian Space Research Organization

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ISRO logo
Kailasavadivoo Sivan, Head of ISRO (2018)

The Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO ) is India's space agency based in Bangalore . It has been headed by Kailasavadivoo Sivan since January 2018 and coordinates space travel in India .

overview

ISRO's mission is to develop space technology, including satellites , launch vehicles , sounding rockets, and ground support technology. Vikram Sarabhai , who is known as the "father of the Indian space program", played a special role in its creation and development .

Founded on August 15, 1969 as a department of the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, ISRO has been subordinate to the Department of Space since 1972 and has been a government organization since 1975. It emerged from the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) created in 1962 .

The current approximately 17,000 employees work in numerous departments across the country. The largest single facility is the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram with 5600 employees, which is responsible for the development of launchers and sounding rockets. Rocket launch sites are located in the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota, from where all Indian satellite launches take place, as well as in Thumba and Baleswar . The Indian company Antrix is responsible for ISRO's commercial interests . K. Radhakrishnan has been head of ISRO since October 2009 .

Projects

Size comparison of Indian launchers; from left to right: SLV , ASLV , PSLV , GSLV , GSLV Mk.III

ISRO had its first success on April 19, 1975 with the launch of the first Indian satellite Aryabhata , which, however, was still launched with Soviet carrier technology. In 1980 a satellite (type Rohini) was launched for the first time using a launch vehicle developed in-house (SLV-3). In 1984, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian, took part in a manned space flight for the first time. He spent eight days on board the Soviet Salyut 7 space station .

ISRO achieved further successes with the projects INSAT (Indian National Satellite System), IRS (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite System), SROSS (Stretched Rohini Satellite Series), PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) and GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) book.

The agency announced on November 7, 2006 that India could be able to conduct a manned space mission within the next eight years . The concept, presented at a meeting of leading scientists in Bangalore, includes a spacecraft yet to be developed that will be launched into Earth orbit by the Indian GSLV rocket. The cost of this project is estimated at around 2 billion euros. In an Independence Day speech on August 15, 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the first flight on the manned spacecraft known as Gaganyaan for the year 2022.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) of ISRO launched Nov. 5, 2013 successfully to Mars. The Mangalyaan spacecraft carried five instruments to Mars to study, but its primary goal is to serve as a "technology demonstrator" for future interplanetary probes.

With the Chandrayaan-1 space probe , ISRO launched India's first space probe on October 22, 2008 with a PSLV rocket. Their goal was an orbit around the moon . Although contact with the probe was lost after only 10 months and the mission ended prematurely, ISRO assessed the mission as successful. On July 22, 2019, the successor mission Chandrayaan-2 started , which also reached a lunar orbit; one attempt to land, however, failed, which also did not lead to the planned rover trip on the lunar surface.

See also

Web links

Commons : Indian Space Research Organization  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Renowned scientist Sivan K named new ISRO chairman . The Times of India . January 10, 2018. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  2. ↑ 'Gaganyaan' to take Indian astronaut to space by 2022: PM Mo . News item The Times of India