Desk: India is poised to mark another historic milestone in its space journey. Over the next two months, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will execute two high-profile missions.
The first major mission is set for May, when Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Axiom-4 mission, in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA. He will become the second Indian to go into space after Rakesh Sharma.
Announcing this landmark mission, Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh said on Friday, “Group Captain Shukla’s journey is not just a space mission, but the beginning of a bold new chapter in India’s space era.”
Shukla has undergone intensive training in Russia and the U.S. for this mission. His journey is expected to be a critical milestone for India’s ambitious human spaceflight program, Gaganyaan. During the Axiom-4 mission, he will gain hands-on experience in spaceflight operations, launch procedures, microgravity adaptation, and emergency preparedness.
Following this, in June, ISRO will launch the most expensive Earth observation satellite ever built — NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) — aboard India’s GSLV-Mk II rocket. This satellite has been jointly developed by NASA and ISRO at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Key Highlights of NISAR Satellite
According to NASA, the satellite will track changing ecosystems, surface deformations, and collapsing ice sheets. It will provide detailed data on biomass, sea level rise, groundwater changes, and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. NISAR will be the world’s first satellite capable of measuring Earth’s surface changes down to the centimeter using two radar frequencies — L-band and S-band.
For this mission, ISRO is providing the satellite bus, S-band radar, launch vehicle, and launch services, while NASA is contributing the L-band radar and other critical systems.
On this occasion, ISRO chairman V. Narayanan gave a detailed presentation on upcoming missions, including the PSLV-C61 mission, which will carry the EOS-09 satellite. This satellite will feature a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar, capable of capturing high-resolution images in all weather and lighting conditions.
Additionally, the Test Vehicle-D2 (TV-D2) mission is also on ISRO’s schedule. It aims to test the functionality of the Gaganyaan crew escape system. This mission will also rehearse the sea recovery process of the crew module, which is vital for India’s first human spaceflight mission.