The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has lined up 18 missions through the next 15 months. These include the launches of the Chandrayaan-II, Gagan and the Astrosat. The organisation has said it, along with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), would launch a spacecraft to study microwave remote sensing.

On whether Isro had delayed new launches because of the Mars Orbiter Mission, which was launched on November 5, chairman K Radhakrishnan said, “No mission in the previous years or the missions of the future were affected because of the accelerated way of working. In fact, we have had an accelerated way of working everywhere.”



“There’s been a quantum jump in other programmes in the last three-four years,” he said, adding in 35 years, the organisation had recorded 82 launches; the last four years alone had seen 27. “We have not compromised. Each programme will have its own problems such as those related to technology or project issue,” he said.

Collaboration with NASA



On the project with JPL he said, “It’s about the study of pulse and knowing what is not normally visible under cloudy conditions…Through remote sensing, depending on the frequency, one can identify what’s there by depending on frequency characteristic change. For instance, the L-band studies vegetation, while the S-band and the X-band study other fields.”“We have done studies in the C-Band. In the project with JPL, we look at the L and S bands,” he said, adding, “The spacecraft will be made by us. A very large antenna would be required---one with a diameter of 12 metre. This will be launched by 2019-20. In the second phase, we will carry out the project report preparation. Then, we will work on the satellite together.”He said for the Chandrayaan project, both Isro and NASA would work together. Collaboration will also be seen in the areas of exploring the Moon, the Sun and Mars.

“We can have a larger mission; we are able to do that. The next one has to be a more complex mission. A while ago, we, along with the French, carried out a joint project of building a satellite---the Megha-Tropiques. We had also worked with the French to develop two landers. We have carried out a joint study with NASA’s JPL,” Radhakrishnan said.