National Desk
11 August
Tv10punjab
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a 6,500 kg communication satellite built in the United States in the coming months. ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan shared this news during an event near Chennai. He said that after the historic launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission on 30 July using the GSLV-F16 rocket, ISRO will send another US-made satellite into space.
The announcement was made during the 21st convocation of SRM Institute of Science and Technology in Kattankulathur, where Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan awarded Narayanan an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In his speech, Narayanan recalled that ISRO was founded in 1963, at a time when India was six to seven years behind developed countries in space technology. That same year, the US donated a small rocket, marking the start of India’s space program on 21 November 1963.
He also mentioned that in 1975, using satellite data provided by the US, ISRO installed 2,400 TV sets across 2,400 villages in six Indian states to test mass communication. Today, a country that once had no satellite technology has successfully launched 433 satellites for 34 different countries.