After Sun And Moon, ISRO Is Ready To Launch Venus, XPoSat Missions Next (Image:unsplash.com)
Following the prestigious Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1, the national space agency is now aiming to grasp Venus next and is preparing in full gear. The mission named ‘Shukrayaan’ is likely to be launched in December next year.
Before ‘Shukrayaan’, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be launching another mission entitled XPoSat, reportedly by December 2023. XPoSat or the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite is designed to study bright X-ray pulsars or stars that are in process of death.
According to ISRO chief S Somanath, ‘Shukrayaan’ is already configured, and its payloads have been developed. 2024 December is chosen for the launch since the time is expected to get Earth and Venus so aligned that the spacecraft could be put in the neighboring planet’s orbit using a minimum amount of propellant, reported India Today. The next similar will be available only in 2031.
Venus is an interesting target for scientists as it has a thick atmosphere with pressure 100 times more than that of Earth and covered full of acids. ‘’You cannot penetrate the surface. You do not know if its surface is hard or not. Why are we trying to understand all of this? Earth could one day be Venus. Maybe 10,000 years later we will change our characteristics’’, said S Somanath addressing the Indian National Science Academy in Delhi.
A User Meet to XPoSat was arranged on May 25, 2023. The mission will learn on various dynamics of astronomical sources in extreme conditions, stated the space agency in May. XPoSat will carry two payloads in a low Earth orbit – POLIX and XSPECT.
The POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays) is set to enable the measurement of polarimetry parameters, including degree and angle of polarization in the medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV photons originating from astronomical sources. The XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing) on the other hand is constructed to provide valuable timing and spectroscopic information within the energy range of 0.8-15 keV of X-ray photons.
📢 A User Meet of XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) – India”s pioneering polarimetry mission – is arranged on
May 25, 2023.Watch it live streamed on https://t.co/zugXQAYy1y and https://t.co/osrHMk7MZL from 10 am IST
to know how to use the expected outcome of XPoSat to… pic.twitter.com/pi3yksY1bg
— ISRO (@isro) May 23, 2023
ISRO also has plans to launch satellites called ExoWorlds, to study exo-solar planets or planets that are outside the solar system and orbiting other stars. The mission will analyse whether these planets are livable, or they host life. The plans of a Mars Lander Mission are also there in its conceptual framework.
