Isro has a string of big tickets projects it hopes to execute in the next decade.

BENGALURU: The next decade will be a compilation of milestones if everything goes as per plan for Isro, which, among many big ticket programmes in its pipeline, will also build a mobile launchpad for the proposed small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) class of vehicles.

Just last week, China demonstrated its ability to do this by using mobile launchers developed for its military to put into space seven civilian satellites. But Isro chairman K Sivan told TOI that that the agency won’t be using military technology for its proposed mobile launchpads.

From a mission to Sun (Aditya) to Chandrayaan-3, and from Gaganyaan (human spaceflight mission) to NISAR, a joint project with US’ Nasa, Isro has a string of big tickets projects it hopes to execute in the next decade.

The Chinese satellites were, on Saturday, launched using KZ-1As rockets, a lightweight solid fuel projectile developed by the China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC), using technology initially for use by the military, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which on March 27, 2019, showed off India’s capabilities of hitting a satellite in space using a missile will also have the ability to turn around the technology and spin it off as a mobile launcher.

Sivan, however, said: “We won’t be working with DRDO. As of now the focus is on developing the second spaceport in Tamil Nadu , but we are also working on building mobile launchpads.” Isro has already requested for Rs 120 crore for a new launchpad for SSLV, which will be part of the new spaceport being proposed in Kulasekarapattinam, a town in the Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin.

Isro will need more than 2,000 acres of land in Kulasekarapattinam, the process to acquire which has already begun.

Isro, at present, carries out all its launches from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota, about 100km from Chennai. Set up in 1971, SDSC will continue to serve the space agency with PSLV and GSLV launches even in the future. “For the Gaganyaan mission, we will require some changes to be made and those modifications will be carried out at Sriharikota,” Sivan had told TOI.

Isro, which has planned at least two experimental flights of SSLV in the coming year, will also look at involving private players for development of future rockets. The space agency has been opening up opportunities for the private sector with the first official expression of interest (EOI) inviting private consortiums to build as many as five PSLVs issued in August this year.

While Isro had earlier allowed private players to assemble satellites, an EOI for launch vehicles was a major shift in the way Isro has been working over the decades. According to a senior official from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), the cost of one fully integrated PSLV launch vehicle is Rs 200 crore. This means that the value of the deal Isro is offering private industry—to build five PSLVs—is at least Rs 1,000 crore.

