Indian Space Program’s New Beginnings                  

• The Indian government has approved four missions under the ‘Gaganyaan’ programme and four to test technologies for India’s first space station, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station 1, by 2028.
• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has added one uncrewed Gaganyaan flight.
• The Cabinet approved ISRO’s development of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) for ₹8,240 crore, including the cost of the rocket’s first three development flights.
• A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) built by Hindustan Aeronautics, Ltd. and Larsen & Toubro is expected to launch at the end of 2024 or early 2025.
• The Cabinet has approved a scientific mission to Venus and the next Chandrayaan mission to the Moon. The Venus Orbiter Mission is expected to be launched in March 2028 and will cost ₹1,236 crore.
• The Cabinet Committee on Security approved the third phase of the Space Based Surveillance (SBS) missions on October 11.
• The third phase of the SBS missions will involve ISRO building 21 satellites and private companies building another 31, for ₹26,968 crore.
• India’s astronaut-designate Sudhanshu Shukla has undergone pressurisation tests at the SpaceX headquarters.
• The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is an earth-observation satellite whose radar antenna reflector recently landed in India from the Jet Propulsion Lab in California.
• ISRO is expected to launch NISAR in early 2025 on board a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
• The other mission, Proba-3 from Europe, will study the Sun’s corona.
• Manastu Space signed an agreement with Dhruva Space to test its green propulsion technology to power the Launching Expeditions for Aspiring Payloads (LEAP-3) mission.
• Bellatrix Aerospace unveiled ‘Project 200’, a prototype for a satellite that can fly at an altitude of 200 km.
• Ananth Technologies became the first private Indian company to assemble, integrate, and test two Space Docking Experiment (SpaDEx) satellites for ISRO.
• Scientists have found that the crater where Chandrayaan-3 landed is older than the South Pole Aitken Basin.