The launch window for India's second lunar exploration mission, Chandravaan-2 is March 25 - April 30 this year, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman, Dr K Sivan, while addressing a press conference on Friday (18) in New Delhi.
He said that ISRO has planned 32 missions in 2019. Elaborating on the priority areas of ISRO, the chairman added that these include, Gaganyaan project, reaching out to students, outreach programmes, planned missions of this year, and Vikram Sarabhai Centenary celebrations.
Speaking on the Gaganyaan, Dr Sivan said, first unmanned space flight will be launched by December 2020, second unmanned mission by July 2021 and the first manned mission by December 2021.
He noted that Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) has been set up for Gaganyaan project.
Elaborating on the upcoming missions in 2019, he mentioned about reusable launch vehicle technology which will be demonstrated this year where the helicopter will take a shuttle to a height and then will be dropped and will land automatically on the runaway. This will help in saving the costs involved in launch vehicles.
He informed that small satellite launch vehicle’s first flight will be in July 2019, which can carry payload up to 500 kilograms.
ISRO chairman said, nine student satellites have been launched by ISRO till date and KALAMSAT will be launched by PSLV-C44 on January 24, this year. He also spoke on other future projects including GSAT-20, RISAT and GMAT series of satellites.
He also informed the media, six incubation centres will be established in various parts of the country - North, South, East, West, Centre and North-East. The first such centre has been established in Agartala.
Taylor Jones, Vinit Thakkar and Kyran Jones join forces to launch THG Indiagetty images
Taylor Jones and Vinit Thakkar come together to launch THG India getty images