NEW DELHI: 2025 is set to be a busy and important calendar year for Isro as space minister Jitendra Singh announced on Tuesday that half-a-dozen big missions have been lined up for launches in the first half of the new year that will include sending a female robot to space in a prelude to the Gaganyaan manned mission and launching the world’s most expensive Indo-US co-produced earth imaging satellite, NISAR.
During a press meet to list India’s space achievements in 2024 and informing about upcoming launches, Singh said Isro will first launch an advanced navigation satellite NVS-02 in Jan. The GSLV launch will mark Isro’s 100th mission. Thereafter, Isro will send Vyommitra, a female humanoid built by Isro, to space as part of the unmanned Gaganyaan mission. This will prelude the manned mission and will be exactly similar to the final manned mission, except for humans. “Once everything goes right in Vyommitra mission, astronauts will be sent to space,” the minister said.
He also said the Indo-US joint mission Nasa-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Satellite, which is considered to be the world’s most expensive satellite at Rs 12,505 crore, will be launched around March. “This satellite will scan nearly all land and ice every 12 days and will have very high resolution,” the minister said.
Singh also said Isro was born in 1969 when the US was busy sending humans to the Moon. But now the situation has changed as Isro is launching US satellites as he refers to the upcoming commercial launch of a satellite for an American customer, which will be used for mobile communication. “We have the LVM3-M5 mission scheduled for the first quarter for an international customer. India is also launching a satellite for direct mobile communication for the US by Feb or March, showcasing our evolving abilities,” the minister said.
Isro has generated over $400 million in revenue from commercial satellite launches conducted over the past decade for the US and the EU, the minister said. Singh said the revenue figure is likely to ramp up in the coming years. “So far, Isro has generated $172 million in revenue by launching satellites for the US, and €292 million ($304 million) for the EU. Out of this, $157 million from US launches and €260 million ($271 million) from EU launches have come in the past decade alone. This shows the kind of progress that India has made in the space economy, and its current stature as a leading spacefaring nation,” Singh said.
Isro chairman S Somanath said, “2025 will be a very exciting year as Isro will launch four GSLV rockets and three PSLV launches as well as an SSLV launch in the new year”.
In 2024, India had launched 15 missions, including some technology demonstration missions and commercial launches, Dr Rajeev Jaiswal, associate director (EO division) of Isro, said.
“We started the year with XPoSat mission on Jan 1, then Aditya L1 solar mission involving sending the Indian spacecraft to the halo orbit of the Sun was launched on Jan 6; INSAT-3DS mission was launched on Feb 17; third and final development flight of on-demand small rocket SSLV carrying an EOS-08 satellite was launched on Aug 16; NSIL’s commercial launch of Gsat-N2 happened on Nov 19; PSLV C59 carrying Europe’s PROBA-3 mission was launched on Dec 5; and finally the SpaDeX mission successfully lifted off from Sriharikota on Dec 30,” he said.
