SRIHARIKOTA:Prime Minister Narendra Modi's exhortation to ISRO in June last year to launch a SAARC satellite, seems to have borne fruit with the ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar announcing that a SAARC satellite will be up in orbit within 18 months.
"There are talks going on and the final configuration of the satellite is set to be finalised soon. Within 18 months, the satellite will be set to be launched," said Kumar.
The SAARC satellite project is an attempt to encourage neighbouring countries use the capabilities of ISRO, even as Pakistan and Sri Lanka have used China's space organisation to launch their communication satellites. If successful, the SAARC satellite project should help ISRO develop a relationship with countries that have largely ignored ISRO, despite ISRO having helped other developing countries with its services.
It is in this backdrop that PM Modi suggested that ISRO come up with a SAARC satellite.
"Today I ask you, the space community, to take up the challenge of developing a SAARC satellite that we can dedicate to our neighbourhood as a gift from India," he had said last year.
Even without the SAARC satellite project, ISRO has a busy year ahead with a UK satellite to be launched commercially soon, two Indian navigation satellites in quick succession - a GSAT series communication satellite and a heavy communication satellite using the European Ariane space platform.
ISRO is also scheduled to test the reusable launch vehicle, which, if successful, will see the prototype being launched in three months. ISRO is also moving forward in building the proposed third launch-pad at Sriharikota for which a project report has already been submitted.
An ion propulsion system is also being researched by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, which will significantly reduce the amount of fuel-mass a satellite holds and make satellites lighter.
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