Chandrayaan - indian mission to moon

With chandrayaan launch stated to happen in mid-October, let us have look at the major milestones of Indian space program, how it began and where is it going?

Space programme in India started in the 1960’s with the launching of small sounding rockets to investigate the ionosphere over the magnetic equator that passes over Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram.


INSAT System is the largest domestic communication satellite system in the Asia Pacific region with eleven satellites in operation carrying a total of 210 transponders for communication and broadcast services including Direct-To-Home (DTH) service besides meteorological instruments for providing meteorological services.


EDUSAT, launched in September 2004, is the first thematic satellite dedicated exclusively for educational services. EDUSAT is providing a wide range of educational delivery modes like one-way TV broadcast, interactive TV, video conferencing, computer conferencing, web-based instructions, etc. About 46 networks that utilise EDUSAT covering 23 states have been setup across the country

With eight satellites in operation, Indian remote Sensing Satellite System (IRS) is the largest civilian remote sensing satellite constellation in the world providing imageries in a variety of spatial resolutions and spectral bands.


ISRO has achieved a significant milestone through the successful test of indigenously developed Cryogenic Stage, to be employed as the upper stage of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The test was conducted for its full flight duration of 720 seconds on November 15, 2007 at Liquid Propulsion test facility at Mahendragiri, in Tamil Nadu. With this test, the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage has been fully qualified on the ground.

Launch of PSLV-C9 is a significant milestone for the country, as it has again proved the reliability and versatility of PSLV and its ability to put satellites in different types of orbits, thus proving its commercial potential as well.

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F04) was launched successfully on September 2, 2007 carrying INSAT-4CR into the desired orbit. The successful launch of GSLV-F04 demonstrated the operational reliability of GSLV as well as reiterating the end-to-end capability of ISRO to not only build state-of-the-art communication satellites, but also to launch them using the indigenously designed and built launch vehicle.

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