ISRO ‘very busy’ with various exploration missions in pipeline: Chairman

ISRO ‘very busy’ with various exploration missions in pipeline: Chairman

• Technology
• October 16, 2023

ISRO has lined up a series of exploration missions including to Mars, Venus and to the Moon again, apart from the maiden human spaceflight programme, Chairman S Somanath said.

The space agency also has drawn up plans to launch missions for studying climate and weather conditions of the Earth, the space agency chief said, speaking to reporters on Sunday.

Besides, ISRO is also working on regular scientific missions including communication, remote sensing satellites, Somanath, who is also the Secretary of the Department of Space, said here.

Speaking about the Gaganyaan programme, he said the maiden TV-D1 test flight is scheduled for October 21.

Elaborating about the upcoming missions undertaken by the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, he said, “We have exploration missions. We have plans to go to Mars, Venus, again sometime to the Moon. We also have programmes to look at the climate and weather of Earth.” Stressing that the scientists at ISRO would be focused on taking up regular missions like launching satellites for communications and remote sensing, he said scientific missions are also in the pipeline to look at issues like aeronomy, thermal imaging, and climate change impact assessment.

To a query about whether scientists were able to receive any kind of response from the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which successfully made a soft-landing on the surface of the Moon on August 23, he said Vikram had done its job very well during the lunar day (equivalent of 14 Earth days) at which time it was programmed to perform its functions.

It is happily sleeping on the Moon. It has done its job very well. Maybe if it wishes to wake up, let it wake up. Until then, we will wait,” he said. ISRO made efforts to re-establish communication with rover Pragyan and lander Vikram after they were put into sleep mode in September following the onset of night on the Moon.
“No signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue,” ISRO had said.