GSLV Mission To mark 100th Launch: Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO ) Chairman S Somanath said that ISRO is preparing to launch the NVS-02 satellite through Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in January 2025. The ISRO chief said on Monday that this mission is one of the many missions to be accomplished in the coming year. The GSLV launch will mark ISRO's 100th mission.

ISRO has many missions in 2025

Regarding the upcoming mission, ISRO chief S Somanath said that we have many missions in 2025. To begin with, we have a GSLV mission launching NVS-02 in the month of January. On May 29, 2023, the GSLV-F12 rocket successfully launched the NVS-01 satellite weighing 2,232 kg into the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

According to an ISRO statement, the NVS-01 satellite carries an indigenous atomic clock and was designed to enhance the capabilities of NavIC, including L1 band signals for wider service coverage . The NVS-02 mission is likely to continue this progress, further strengthening the NavIC system with advanced features. The announcement was made after Somnath's successful launch of PSLV-C60, which carried SpaDeX and other payloads.

ISRO successfully launched its ambitious mission PSLV-C60 SpaDeX at 10 pm on Monday night. With this mission, India joined the select club of countries that have mastered space docking technology. ISRO said that PSLV-C60 has successfully launched SpaDeX and 24 payloads. It has been launched from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh with SpaDeX and new payloads.

What is the SpaDeX mission?

The full name of SpaDeX is Space docking experiment. Under this mission, ISRO sent two satellites, chaser and target, into space. Space docking was demonstrated by joining these two satellites. This technology will be very useful in the construction of space stations and other large spacecraft in the future.

Docking technology in space will be essential to fulfill India's space ambitions, which include sending humans to the moon, bringing back samples from there, and building and operating the country's own space station - the Indian Space Station. Docking technology will also be used when more than one rocket launch is planned to achieve common mission objectives. The PSLV rocket will put the two spacecraft - Spacecraft A (SpaDeX01) and Spacecraft B (SpaDeX02) - into an orbit that will keep them five kilometers apart from each other. Later, scientists at ISRO headquarters will try to bring them closer by three meters, after which they will join together at an altitude of about 470 kilometers from the Earth, ISRO said.