Chennai, Aug 12: India will launch a 6,500 kg communication satellite built by the United States from its own soil in the next two months, marking another milestone in the country’s expanding space capabilities, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V. Narayanan said on Sunday.
Speaking at the 21st convocation of SRM Institute of Science and Technology near Chennai, Narayanan said the mission would follow the successful launch on July 30 of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, the costliest satellite ever built. NISAR, equipped with an L-Band SAR payload from the U.S. and an S-Band payload from ISRO, was placed into orbit by India’s GSLV-F16 rocket, earning praise from NASA for the precision of the launch.
Narayanan, who is also Secretary of the Department of Space, reflected on ISRO’s journey since its establishment in 1963, when it began with a small U.S.-donated rocket. In 1975, using American satellite data, ISRO demonstrated mass communication to 2,400 villages across six Indian states.
“From a country which did not have satellite technology 50 years back, ISRO has, to date, launched 433 satellites for 34 countries using its own launch vehicles,” he said, calling the upcoming U.S. satellite launch a symbol of India’s rise to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with advanced spacefaring nations.
Narayanan was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree at the ceremony by Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan.
