Indian Science Missions For The New Year 2024 (Image: X.com/IndianTechGuide)
After the fruitful moon mission, India is all set to go spaces in the coming year 2024. With this objective, the country has many space projects lined up, which includes lunar sample return and human space flight. The year 2023, shone bright with the success of July 14 Chandrayaan-3 mission, which landed near the moon’s south pole on August 23. The Vikram lander, which delivered the Pragyaan rover also shared the picture as it walked the moon and gathered regolith, the lunar soil. More challenging test missions are ahead for the coming year, not only in the arena of space, but in to the depths of the oceans too.
The new year is to begin with the launch of XPosat by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The XPoSat or the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite mission is to open up the sources of the X-Rays and to understand the mysterious black holes. The satellite’s launch has been planned for the first of January from Sriharikota, upon a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), said the ET. Following this, on January 6th, the Aditya L-1 satellite would be inserted at the Lagrange Point-1, from where the satellite would have a non-stop view of the object of its study for five years, the Sun.
The new year will have a collaborative, the launch NISAR satellite, which is a collaboration between the ISRO and the NASA. The satellite’s objective is to study the changes in the climate. It is a 1.2 billion USD project which is the most expensive earth imaging satellite, said the ET. Under the ‘Gaganyaan’ project, two unmanned missions are also expected to be launched during the coming year.
The private sector, along with the government, is also gearing up to welcome the new year with commercial launches. Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos are preparing their launch vehicles, which are home-built, to take small satellites into low earth orbits. Pawan Kumar Chandana, the co-founder of Skyroot Aerospace said, “for the launch of Vikram-1, we are targeting the first half of 2024. The year 2024 will be a milestone year for us as we leap ahead to orbital launch capabilities which is critical for commercialisation of our launch services,” ET reported as told to the PTI.
The IIT Madras space start-up called the Agnikul Cosmos, is another player who is readying to go ahead with a test flight of ‘Agnibaan,’ it’s 3D printed rocket in the coming year. Pixxel, which is a company, based in Bengaluru for hyper-spectral imaging satellites has plans to launch 24 satellites by the year 2025. Their first six satellites, called Fireflies satellites are to be launched in 2024 and the next set of eighteen is to be launched in the year 2025.
Another big game for the coming year is India’s participation in projects such as Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Indo-US collaborative Fermilab initiative. The estimated cost associated with these projects are Rs 2,600 crore and Rs 900 crore respectively. Complementing the two LIGO projects in Louisiana and Washington, India would have a project built at Hingoli in Maharashtra.
Apart from the approval for the LIGO and the Indo-US collaborative Fermilab initiative, the government of India has also approved the National Quantum Mission (NQM), for quantum technologies at the cost of above Rs 6,000 crore for the coming eight years. This has been approved in order to keep up the scientific and industrial research and development in the field of quantum technologies.
Another plan for the coming year is the building of a new research station, ‘Maitri II’ in Antarctica. India already has a permanent research station called ‘Bharati’ at Antarctica, and the new station is expected to begin operation by the year 2029 and would be stationed at about 6,000 kms from the ‘Bharati’ station. As for India’s presence in the Artic, India has sent its first winter expedition to the region, with the plan to maintain its presence all the year round at its Himadri research station, located in Norway’s Svalbard region. Further, on deep exploration of the oceans, in March, India has plans to send aquanauts on the ‘Samudrayaan,’ initially, to a 500 meters depth, and then, to the target depth of 6,000 meters.
Looking back, the year 2023, has witnessed sudden changes along with momentous leaps, such as the shifting of Minister Kiren Rijiju to Ministry of Earth Sciences from Ministry of Law, and the sudden resignation of the secretary of Department of Science and Technology.
Another development has been the department of Science and Technology’s distanced stance during the Indian Science Congress association’s Indian Science Congress, 109th edition; as the association had taken the government to court on the claim of interference in their functioning. As a fall-out of this, the Indian Science Congress, which is usually held and inaugurated by the Prime Minister of the country on every January 3rd, has now been kept on hold.
