Latest Developments with ISRO

Latest Missions Planned by ISRO

India’s space agency has been signing partnerships, building rockets, and planning ambitious missions over the past few years, and much of that planning should be coming to fruition by the end of the year. Here are the ISRO missions planned for 2022 and beyond.

• The Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander mission is planned for August. If successful, the mission would make India the fourth spacefaring nation to successfully land a craft on the Moon. Chandrayaan-2 crash-landed in 2019. Chandrayaan-1 was able to detect water on the moon making it a monumental lunar mission for the whole world.
• The inaugural flight of ISRO’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is targeted for July through September.
• In February, ISRO launched the EOS-04 radar imaging satellite aboard its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
• Aditya L1 mission will be launched in 2022 to study Sun’s corona (Visible and Near-infrared rays), chromosphere (Ultra Violet), Sun’s photosphere (soft and hard X-ray), solar winds & flares, solar emissions, and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). It will also carry out round-the-clock imaging of the Sun. It will help in studying the Effects of Variation in the Solar Weather System. Variations in this weather can change the orbits of satellites or even shorten their lives and it will also help understand how solar storms affect Earth.
• Gaganyaan mission is expected to see ISRO launch three Indian astronauts into space by 2023, its first uncrewed mission has been scheduled for the beginning of the second half of 2022. The preparations for the projects are underway. As per reports, the first crewed mission was originally planned to be launched on ISRO’s GSLV Mk III in December 2021. Once ISRO is successful in launching a manned spacecraft to orbit with Indian Astronauts, India will be the 4th nation after USA, Russia, and China to be able to launch astronauts to space.
• India’s mission to Venus, named Shukrayaan, is expected to be launched in 2024. Shukrayaan will study Venus for four years. According to ISRO, the scientific objectives of the Venus mission are the investigation of the surface processes and shallow subsurface stratigraphy; solar wind interaction with the Venusian Ionosphere, and studying the structure, composition, and dynamics of the atmosphere.