In preparations for the upcoming Chandrayaan-2 mission which will launch in the first quarter of 2018 mostly around March, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is simultaneously also working on Venus, Mars and asteroid projects
and has invited an announcement of opportunity for payloads for these interplanetary missions .which will be the experiments the spacecraft will be carrying.
While interacting with the media during the Project Managers Global Summit 2017 here on Monday, ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar said,
“What the satellites (for interplanetary missions) will carry is a question of scientific interest. Therefore, proposals have been sought from researchers, scientific community and institutions from across the country. Based on these proposals for meeting scientific objectives, technological requirement of the satellites will be planned and payload configurations for the spacecraft for these missions will be decided. Right now, we are concentrating on Chandrayaan-2 and Aditya missions.”
In order to boost space infrastructure speed and capacity , the ISRO chairman said,
“We are trying to increase the frequency of launches so that we can bring up sufficient infrastructure in space to meet the communication, remote-sensing, earth observation and navigation requirements of the country. Though we have 42 satellites currently in operation, we still need more.”
The organization is working on increasing the launch frequency to a 24 per year.
The second lunar mission that is the Chandrayaan-2 will be different from Chandrayaan-1 as it will carry a lander and a rover. A first for India. The lander will do a controlled descent on the moon’s surface. Tests on different components are going on, some are at Chellakere, Karnataka . ISRO has also started assembling flight versions of the launcher,mother satellite and the rover.
Source : TOI
