Hyderabad: ISRO Chairman V Narayanan on Friday said that India has to nearly triple its number of satellites in space, from the current 55, within the next three years.
Delivering 'The GP Birla Memorial Lecture on Indian Space Programme - Accomplishments, Challenges and Future Perspectives', Narayanan said by 2040 India would be on par with any other nation in terms of space technology, application area, and infrastructure.
He also said as many as 12 launch vehicle missions are planned by the ISRO this year. The upcoming mission, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is scheduled to be launched by India's GSLV F16 on July 30.
"Now we are working on building our own space station. We are going to have our own Chandrayan landing. Right now, 55 satellites are in orbit serving the common man in this country. And in another three years, this number has to become almost three times. The requirement is huge. The demand is so much that we have to build satellites. We are working towards that," he said.
Later, talking to reporters, he said that in 2035 India will build a full space station, and the first module will be placed in orbit in 2028.
Narayanan said, as far as space sector reforms are concerned, a lot of work is going on, and earlier, ISRO's model of work used to be service-oriented, but now it wants to grab business opportunities.
He said after the success of Chandrayaan-3, Japan wanted to collaborate with India, and as a result, ISRO and JAXA, the Japanese space agency, decided to work towards the Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX mission.
"We are building the satellite together, and the launch will be done by Japan. Chandrayaan-3's lander mass was 1,600 kg and this will be 6,600 kg. We are working on that and you will hear great news in another two years," he said.
Narayanan stated that ISRO is in the process of launching a 6,500 kg communication satellite of the USA into orbit using Indian rockets, in another three months.
He further said the centre gave its approval for setting up a third launch pad at Sriharikota with a budget of about Rs 4,000 crore.
According to him, the ISRO expects the Gaganyaan mission to launch Indian astronauts into space only in the first quarter of 2027. ISRO has placed 433 satellites belonging to 34 countries which do not have space technology into orbit using Indian rockets.
In the last ten years the total number of satellites launched by ISRO stands at 518, he added.
Narayanan, Chairman of ISRO and Secretary of the Department of Space received the prestigious G P Birla Memorial Award.
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