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ISRO will have four working launch pads by 2029 and will not be privatised, says Narayanan

The ISRO chairman told graduates in Chennai that a 2,000-acre small-rocket complex at Kulasekarapattinam is part of the expansion, and that private firms will be partners, not owners.

From the editorial desk · ChennaiPublished
ISRO's human-rated LVM3 rocket for the Gaganyaan mission (file photo)
ISRO's human-rated LVM3 rocket for the Gaganyaan mission (file photo)Photo: Hawkeye190305 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Key points

  1. V Narayanan said India will have four functional launch pads by 2029.
  2. A 2,000-acre SSLV complex is coming up at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi district.
  3. He said ISRO will not be privatised, though it will work closely with private firms and startups.

India will have four working launch pads by 2029, ISRO chairman V Narayanan has said, as the space agency prepares for a surge in demand for satellite launches at home and abroad.

“India will expand its space operations significantly with four functional launch pads by 2029,” Narayanan told graduates at a private university in Chennai on Saturday. He did not say which sites would make up the four.

One of them is taking shape at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, where ISRO is building a dedicated 2,000-acre complex for its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). Narayanan said it would have its own integration buildings, launch pads, rail-track systems and telemetry, tracking and command facilities. India’s launches today all go from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

Partners, not owners

Narayanan was firm that ISRO would stay a government agency. ISRO would not be privatised, he said, but it would work with private companies and startups to meet the global and domestic demand for satellites, passing on its technical know-how and creating high-skilled jobs in the process.

Gaganyaan and the Moon

He repeated that the first uncrewed Gaganyaan test flight is due within about two months, to be followed by two more uncrewed flights before Indians are sent up. ISRO has finished about 8,000 ground experiments for the human spaceflight programme, and four astronaut-designates are in specialised training.

Narayanan also spoke about Chandrayaan-5, the lunar mission India is building with Japan’s space agency. It will carry a 350-kg rover meant to run experiments on the Moon’s surface for 100 days.