ISRO Chairman V Narayanan expressed gratitude after the 100th launch
Sriharikota: ISRO Chairman V Narayanan sent appreciation to the Indian Space Research Organization after the successful launch of their GSLV-F15 carrying the NVS-02 on Wednesday morning, stating that the 100th launch marks an important milestone in the Indian space program.
Speaking at the ceremony, Narayanan said, “I am very pleased to report from ISRO’s spaceport that this year’s maiden launch was completed successfully. The navigation satellite NVS-02 is accurately injected into orbit by the GSLV-F15 vehicle launch vehicle. This mission marks an important milestone for India since it is the 100th launch from our launch facilities.
“A generation of leaders carried on our space program, which was envisioned and initiated by visionary leader Vikram Sarabhai. We have created six generations of launch vehicles up to this point. In 1979, APJ Abdul Kalam served as project director and Satish Dhawan oversaw the development of the first launch vehicle. We have completed 100 launches since then, including today’s launch,” he said.
The chairman of ISRO further emphasized that during these launches, 548 spacecraft and 120 tons of payload—including 23 tons of 433 foreign satellites—were carried into orbit.
“The Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) mission, the Aditya L-1 mission, the Mars orbit mission, the three Chandrayan missions, and other noteworthy achievements of the Indian space program have all taken place at this launch site. V Narayanan praised the hard work and devotion of our current and former workers, partners, and family members, as well as the preceding generation of leaders.
“Let me also express our sincere gratitude to the political leadership for their encouragement and support throughout the space program,” he said.
He said that PSLV, GSLV, LVM-3, and SSLV are ISRO’s active launch vehicles.
“The mission today was the 17th GSLV launch. The data has arrived, every vehicle system has operated as planned, and the satellite has been inserted with the least amount of dispersion possible,” he said.
“The Navy has implemented several applications today, including time synchronization, shipping vessel monitoring, strategic usage, and the distribution of safety of life alerts. We anticipate successfully deploying the satellite in its designated orbit and doing more orbit tracing in the days ahead,” Narayanan said.
With several missions scheduled for the next months, the ISRO Chairman also underlined that they have a very busy year ahead of them.
“As you are all aware, we are making great strides toward the Gaganyaan program’s first uncrewed G1 mission preparation, and this year we want to conduct a few more tests. Along with the third launch pad at Sriharikota and the second launch complex at Kulasekharapatnam, ISRO is also preparing for a number of upcoming projects, such as the Next Generation Launcher NGLV, the Chandrayaan 4 and 5 missions, and the Venus Orbiter Mission,” he said.
“Let me thank PM Narendra Modi for his visionary leadership in rolling out the space sector reform,” said Narayanan.
The GSLV-F15 is the 11th flight of India’s indigenous cryo stage and the 17th flight of the country’s geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV). This is GSLV’s eighth flight using an in-house cryogenic stage. The metallic GSLV-F15 payload fairing has a diameter of 3.4 meters.
According to a statement from ISRO, the NVS-02 satellite would be launched into a geosynchronous transfer orbit by the GSLV-F15, which has an in-house cryogenic stage. India’s Regional Navigation Satellite System will be upgraded from four to five satellites thanks to the launch.
India’s autonomous regional navigation satellite system, Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), was created to provide customers in India and an area that extends around 1500 km beyond the Indian landmass precise Position, Velocity, and Timing (PVT) services.
Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS) are the two service categories that NavIC will provide. Over the service region, NavIC’s SPS offers location precision of over 20 meters and timing accuracy of over 40 nanoseconds.
