ISRO is preparing to enter one of its busiest phases yet, with seven more launches planned by the end of the current financial year, while India’s first manned space flight remains on track for 2027, its chairman V Narayanan said.
Speaking to PTI, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman said the effort is part of a broader strategy to rapidly expand India’s scientific, technological and industrial capacity in the space sector.
Upcoming launches include a commercial communications satellite along with several PSLV and GSLV missions. Notably, the ambitious plan includes a major milestone – the launch of the first PSLV made entirely by Indian industry.
ISRO is simultaneously working to triple its annual spacecraft production over the next three years to keep up with the growing demand for missions, PTI reported.
Key upcoming missions and milestones
The ISRO chief said the government has approved the Chandrayaan-4 mission, which will be India’s most complex lunar endeavor so far. It is designed as a lunar sample return mission in which the spacecraft will attempt to bring back samples from the Moon.
The ability to bring back samples from the moon is currently demonstrated only by the USA, Russia and China.
“We are targeting 2028 for Chandrayaan-4,” V Narayanan told PTI.
Another key mission is LUPEX, a joint lunar polar exploration program with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to study water ice at the lunar south pole.
Narayanan said ISRO has started work on India’s space station, which is expected to be completed by 2035. “The first of the five modules will be placed in orbit by 2028,” he said.
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The project would position India as the third major country to operate a space station as the US-led International Space Station (ISS) nears completion and China’s Tiangong enters full operation.
On India’s first manned space mission, Gaganyaan, Narayanan clarified that only the time frame for unmanned missions had shifted. “Let me be clear: the unmanned mission was targeted for 2025. The manned mission was always planned for 2027, and we are sticking to that date,” he said.
He also noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed ISRO to aim for sending Indian astronauts to the lunar surface and their safe return by 2040.
India’s growth in the global space economy
India’s share of the global space economy is currently 2% and ISRO is working to increase it to 8% by 2030, Narayanan said.
India’s space economy is currently valued at around $8.2 billion and is projected to grow to $44 billion by 2033. While the global space economy, he said, is currently worth about $630 billion and could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
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Following the space sector reforms in 2020, there has been a dramatic increase in private sector participation.
Narayanan said there are now more than 450 industries and 330 startups active in India’s space ecosystem, a huge increase from just three startups a few years ago.
India’s private space industry has accelerated post-regulation reforms in 2020, allowing private rocket development, satellite manufacturing and commercial launch services, PTI reported.
