‘100th launch significant milestone for India’: ISRO chief after successful launch of GSLV-F15

SRIHARIKOTA (Andhra Pradesh): After the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the GSLV-F15, carrying the NVS-02 on Wednesday morning, ISRO chairman V Narayanan expressed gratitude and said that the 100th launch is a significant milestone of India space programme.

Addressing the event, Narayanan said, “I am extremely happy to announce from the spaceport of ISRO that the first launch of this year has been successfully accomplished. The GSLV-F15 vehicle launch vehicle precisely injecting the navigation satellite NVS-02 into orbit. This mission is the 100th launch from our launch pads which is a significant milestone for India”.

“Our space programme was conceived and started by a visionary leader Vikram Sarabhai and taken forward by a generation of leaders. Till today, we have developed six generations of launch vehicles. The first launch vehicle was developed under the guidance of Satish Dhawan with A P J Abdul Kalam as the project director in 1979. From that till today, including today’s launch, we have accomplished 100 launches”, he added.

#WATCH | Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh: ISRO launchs its 100th mission, the NVS-02 navigation satellite aboard the launch vehicle GSLV-F15 from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 6.23 am today.

(Source: ISRO) pic.twitter.com/n5iY9N8N0p

— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2025

The ISRO chairman also highlighted that over these launches, they have lifted 548 satellites to orbit and a total of 120 tons of payload including 23 tons of 433 foreign satellites. “This launch site has witnessed several significant milestones of the Indian Space programme including three Chandrayan missions, the Aditya L-1 mission, the Mars orbit mission, the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) mission, etc”.

“I salute all the previous generation of previous leaders, our present and past employees, our partners and our family for their hard work and dedication”, V Narayanan said. “Let me also express our sincere gratitude to the political leadership for their encouragement and support throughout the space programme”, he added.

He mentioned further that the ISRO have operational launch vehicles- PSLV, GSLV, LVM-3 and SSLV. “Today’s mission was the 17th launch of GSLV. In this mission, the data has come, all the vehicle systems have performed as expected and the satellite is injected with a very minimum level of dispersal”, he said.

“Today, many applications based on the Navy spanning from strategic uses, tracking of shipping vessels, time synchronization and safety of life alert dissemination are accomplished. In the coming days, we look forward to further orbit tracing the satellite and successful deployment in the assigned orbit”, Narayanan said.

#WATCH | Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh | On the launch of the 100th mission GSLV-F15 with NVS-02 Satellite, ISRO chairman Dr V Narayanan says, “This 100th mission accomplishment is teamwork…The reward for hard work is more work. And ISRO has got a very busy year ahead with many… pic.twitter.com/9FyWPvdXzN

— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2025

The ISRO chairman also emphasized that they have a very busy year ahead with many missions lined up in the coming months. “You all know we are progressing extremely well in the preparation of the first uncrewed G1 mission as part of the Gaganyaan programme, and some more experiments are targeted this year. ISRO is also gearing up for a host of developments including the Next Generation Launcher NGLV, Chandrayaan 4, Chandrayaan 5 missions, and Venus Orbiter Mission along with the third launch pad at Sriharikota and the second launch complex at Kulasekharapatnam”, he said.

“Let me thank PM Narendra Modi for his visionary leadership in rolling out the space sector reform”, Narayanan added.

The GSLV-F15 is the 17th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and 11th flight with the Indigenous Cryo stage. It is the 8th operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous Cryogenic stage. The GSLV-F15 payload fairing is a metallic version with a diameter of 3.4 meters.

The GSLV-F15, with an indigenous cryogenic stage, will place the NVS-02 satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, ISRO said in a statement. The launch will help update India’s Regional Navigation Satellite System from 4 to 5 satellites.

Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) is India’s independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide accurate Position, Velocity and Timing (PVT) service to users in India as well as to region extending about 1500 km beyond Indian land mass.

NavIC will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS). NavIC’s SPS provides a position accuracy of better than 20 m and timing accuracy better than 40 nanoseconds over the service area. (ANI)