January. 3 (UPI) — India's space agency says it plans 10 orbital missions, as well as its first commercial attempt, in 2025 after successfully launching a space project this week.
Indian Space Research Organization President S. Somanath to reporters after the PSLV-C60 rocket was launched on Monday carrying the Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, payload, that the country has big plans for the coming year.
“ISRO plans to launch the NVS-02 satellite in January 2025, with more missions planned for the coming year,” he said on Tuesday while marking the organization's 99th launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh. in which two small spacecraft were built to dock together in space, a mission considered essential for India's space ambitions.
“Through this mission, India is moving to become the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology,” the agency said. in a statement.
Among the upcoming plans outlined by Somanath are 10 missions, including the NVS-02 navigation satellite. With that “milestone” 100th launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, ISRO will launch the second in the series of 2nd generation navigation satellites and the ninth satellite in its Navigation by Indian Constellation.
Like its predecessor NVS-01, the NVS-02 is likely to have both navigation and a different payload that is meant to serve civilian and military geo-location needs, NDTV reported.
Four more geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle missions are on the schedule for 2025, as well as a crewed LVM-3 launch for India's Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, three Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle missions and a launch launched an SSLV solid rocket, Somanath said.
