Chandrayaan 1 as India's first lunar probe. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation on 22 October 2008, and was operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. The mission was a major boost to India's space program, as India researched and developed its own technology in order to explore the Moon. The vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008.[3][4]
Orbiter functional; the lander crashed onto Moon's surface due to loss of control (caused by a software glitch) during the final phase of descent.[5]
Chandrayaan-2 was launched from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 22 July 2019 at 2:43 PM IST (09:13 UTC) to the Moon by a LVM3 (previously known as GSLV Mk III). The planned or by bit has a perigee of 169.7 km and an apogee of 45475 km. It consists of a lunar orbiter, lander and rover, all developed in India. The main scientific objective is to map the location and abundance of lunar water.
10 November 2023 (Orbiter exited lunar sphere of influence)
Chandrayaan-3 was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on 14 July 2023 at 14:35 IST (UTC +5:30) by LVM3 M4. The main scientific objective is to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on moon on 23 August 2023 at 18:05 IST (UTC +5:30). For technology demonstration experiments, hop experiment on the Vikram Lander was conducted and the Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 was moved from an orbit around Moon to an orbit around Earth, where it operated until 22 August 2024.[6][7]
Aditya-L1 is the first Indian observatory class mission to study the solar corona using a solar coronagraph and also chromosphere using near UV instrument. X-ray spectroscopic instruments will provide flare spectra while the in-situ payload observes the solar events during their passage from Sun to Earth.[8] On 6 January 2024, Aditya-L1 spacecraft, India's first solar mission, has successfully entered its final orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.[9]
Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, is a spacecraft orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It is India's first interplanetary spaceflight mission and ISRO has become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. India is the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its first attempt.[10][11]
ASTROSAT id Indian Astronomy satellite mission launched by ISRO on 28 September 2015, which enabled multi-wavelength observations of the celestial bodies and cosmic sources in X-ray and UV spectral bands simultaneously. It was in the Sun's orbit for 7 years. The scientific payloads cover the Visible (3500–6000 Å...), UV (1300–op Å...), soft and hard X-ray regimes (0.5–8 keV; 3–80 keV). The uniqueness of ASTROSAT lies in its wide spectral coverage extending over visible, UV, soft and hard X-ray regions.[12]
SPADEX or Space Docking Experiment is a twin spacecraft mission being developed by the ISRO to mature technologies related to orbital rendezvous, docking, formation flying, with scope of applications in human spaceflight, in-space satellite servicing and other proximity operations.
Gaganyaan ("Orbital Vehicle") is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft (jointly made by ISRO and HAL) intended to be the basis of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capability. This will be the first of two flight tests prior to the inaugural of crewed mission.
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar satellite to be used for remote sensing. It is notable for being the first dual-band radar imaging satellite.[17]
First crewed Gaganyaan mission. If successful, India would become the fourth country in the world (after the US, Soviet Union and China) to independently send humans in space.
Lunar Polar Exploration Mission, known as Chandrayaan-5 in India, is a proposed mission by JAXA and ISRO to explore the south pole region of the Moon. The mission concept has been formally proposed for funding and planning.[18]
The Bharatiya Antariksha Station (referred in the media as Indian Space Station) is a planned space station to be constructed by India and operated by the (ISRO). The space station would weigh 20 tonnes and maintain an orbit of approximately 400 kilometres above the Earth, where astronauts could stay for 15–20 days.
AstroSat-2 is India's second dedicated multi-wavelength space telescope, proposed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) as the successor of the current Astrosat-1 observatory. ISRO launched an 'Announcement of Opportunity in February 2018 requesting proposals from Indian scientists for ideas and the development of instruments for astronomy and astrophysics.
Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (MOM 2) also called Mangalyaan 2 is India's second interplanetary mission planned for launch to Mars. It will have a lander along with the rover and a helicopter like Ingenuity (NASA) and will demonstrate the capability of landing on Mars.
Other missions
There are also various Indian satellite which contain science related instruments as secondary payloads. The main objective of these satellites are not Space Science. For example an X-ray payload was flown aboard Aryabhatta, the first Indian satellite.
The STS-51-BSpace Shuttle Challenger mission consisted of Anuradha, an Indian Cosmic Ray Experiment. It consisted of a Barrel shaped recorder consisting of plastic sheets. It detected cosmic rays at the rate of seven a minute for 64 hours and produced 10000 sheets of data.
