20 November 2021 - ISRO: India's Space Journey (E)

In less than 60 years India has become a world leader in space technology and exploration. The programme began in 1962 under the leadership of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai – it was then a part of the Department of Atomic energy. India’s vision in establishing the space programme is to “Harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration.” The track record of India’s space agency speaks for itself – engineers and scientists of ISRO have designed and developed a range of launch vehicles for putting into space indigenous satellites and related technologies for earth observation, communication, navigation, metrology and space science. Some of the important initiates of ISRO have included the development and launch of the Indian National Satellite System or INSAT for communications, broadcasting and meteorology, the IRS or the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite system series to support the national economy in areas such as agriculture, water resources, forestry – and importantly the development and operationalisation of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) for launching not only Indian but international satellites into space. India has also achieved success in important space exploration initiatives like Chandrayaan, the launch in 2013 of the Mars Orbiter Mission also known as Mangalyaan, ISRO’s first interplanetary mission -, and AstroSat in 2015 the first dedicated Indian Astronomy Mission. The next few years are going to be even more eventful and path-breaking for ISRO and indeed our country – preparations are underway for launching a three-member Indian crew to space for a period of five to seven days and safely return them to Earth. This and much more on our special 2 episode series of Science for a Self-Reliant on India’s space programme and ISRO – only on India Science.

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