India to launch Gaganyaan and Samudrayaan for space and ocean

Samudrayaan to help preserve ocean ecosystem. Pic/X

After the momentous landing on the moon's south pole, India has now set its sights on more challenging missions - sending humans to space and getting samples from the lunar surface back to earth. Test flights for both the projects are scheduled in the new year.

For Indian scientists it is just not about the moon and beyond. Furthering deep ocean exploration, the country is scheduled to send aquanauts on board the "Samudrayaan", first to a depth of 500 metres in March, and later, achieve its targetted depth of up to 6,000 metres.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to begin the new year with the launch of XPoSat. The X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat), will seek to unravel the mysteries of the sources of X-Rays and study the enigmatic world of black holes. The satellite is set for launch on January 1 on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota.

This would be followed by the insertion of the Aditya L-1 satellite at the Lagrange Point-1 on January 6 at 4 pm, from where it will have an uninterrupted view of the sun, its object of study for the next five years. The new year will also see the launch of the NISAR satellite, a USD 1.2 billion joint project by NASA and ISRO. It will be the most expensive earth imaging satellite ever made to study climate change.

The Vikram lander module of the mission also delivered a rover "Pragyaan", on the lunar surface that roamed around for a few metres, clicked pictures of the moon and scooped lunar soil "regolith" to study its properties. The new year will witness two unmanned missions under the "Gaganyaan" project to validate the human-rated launch vehicle and the orbital module in actual flight.

6,000
Samudrayaan's targetted reach in the ocean in metres

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