New Isro facility to boost launch capability

NEW DELHI: Indian Space Research Organisation's satellite launch capability will soon get a boost as the country's solitary launchpad centre at Sriharikota (Satish Dhawan Space Centre) will get a second vehicle assembly building by the end of this year.

Talking to TOI, Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar said, “Because of just one assembly building, final assembling of components (stages of rockets) was a bottleneck. The work on the second vehicle assembly building is nearly complete and by the end of this year, it will become operational. We will be ab le to assemble parallelly launch vehicles and bring them to the existing two launchpads.“

On planning to build a third launchpad at Sriharikota High Altitude Range, a spindle-shaped island on the east coast of Andhra, Kumar said, “We have not reached the limit of two launchpads. Once we are able to assemble more rockets but not able to launch them even by reducing launch timings, then we will start work on the third launchpad. We first need approval. So, we are working to eliminate all bottlenecks to increase frequency of launches.“ With the new facility , Isro can launch 12 rockets in a year from the current seven.

On missions planned in the second half of this year, Kumar said, “We are trying for 3 to 4 launches by year-end. The replacement for the first navigational satellite IRNSS-1A will be launched by month-end.“ The need for replacing IRNSS-1A, one of the seven satellites in India's navigation system, was felt after three atomic clocks (meant to provide precise locational data) of the satellite stopped working.

On big missions next year, Kumar said, “The launch of the Chandrayaan-2 mission and the second developmental flight of GSLV Mk III D2 is due.“ With Rs230 crore earned through foreign satellite launches in 2015-16, Isro's share is just 0.6% of the global launch services market worth Rs38,000 crore.