By Express News Service

BENGALURU: India's second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2 is in its final stages of integration and will be launched in the first quarter of 2018, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman, A S Kiran Kumar.

“Integration of the orbiter, rower and other tests pertaining to the project are being taken up at the ISRO Satellite Center and will be completed soon,” Kumar said, “Chandrayaan-2 will be in orbit soon.”

Apart from Chandrayaan-2, ISRO will launch 28 commercial satellites for its customers along with another satellite from the CartoSat-2 series satellites in the second half of December.

C-39 problem

Responding to a question on the failure of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLv) - C39, he said that scientists have been able to narrow in on the exact cause of the problem.

During the recent launch of PSLV-C39, the topmost nose cone of the rocket carrying one of the satellites of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System did not separate, resulting in a loss of around Rs 300 crore to the space organisation.

"There was a bellow in the system, which did not allow pressure to develop and sheared the nose cone. It was a combination of several factors and was a rare case when everything went wrong," he said.

The problem did not arise from design flaws as C39 has performed well in 60 launches over the years.

"We are trying to make the launch vehicle more robust now," he said.

On the projects being taken up by ISRO, he said that AstroSat-2 is still in a study phase. "There was a meeting regarding the equipment that could be used in the project. Teams are working on it and it's currently in a study phase," he said.

Mission to the Sun

On Aditya, the mission to study the sun, he said that it would be launched in 2019. Using the devices inside the satellite, we will be able to study many phenomena observed in the sun, such as coronal mass ejections, he added.

Commenting on the need to improve their capabilities, he said that they are looking to increase the number of launches by ISRO from 8-10 to 18 per year, he added.

To a question on start-ups, he said that firms such as Bellatrix Aerospace have been awarded contracts to develop micro-thermal thrusters. Encouragement is being provided on various fronts to help the small firms grow and capture a share of the global market, he said.

Rs 800 cr contracts with Antrix

The commercial arm of ISRO, Antrix, is currently working on contracts worth Rs 850 crore, said S Rakesh, Chairman and Managing Director of Antrix. He said that they have orders to launch 200 satellites belonging to 29 countries. Works for projects worth Rs 250-300 crore are currently in progress, he added.