India’s Solar Mission to Reach its Destination in January

India’s first solar mission, ‘Aditya-L1’, will reach its destination, Lagrange Point 1, around the first week of January 2024, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Monday (December 18, 2023)….reports Asian Lite News

Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun, was launched on September 2, 2023. According to ISRO, the spacecraft carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic and particle and magnetic field detectors.

During the course of next year, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will also conduct a series of tests related to India’s maiden human Space mission, Gaganyaan, he said during an exclusive interview to Sansad TV in New Delhi.

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology, MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space also said that the world is eagerly awaiting studies from Chandrayaan-3, which landed on the virgin South Polar region of Moon. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Washington earlier this year, NASA made a proposal to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS), which is likely to materialize next year, Singh said.

Union Minister Singh said India is utilizing Space Applications in almost all sectors such as Infrastructure Development, ‘Svamitva’ GPS land-mapping, and Smart Cities. “Space research now touches each and every person’s life in one way or the other,” he said, adding Atomic Energy is today being used for Clean Energy and in food preservation and the medical field.

He noted that this has been possible due to the courage and conviction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who broke taboos of the past and provided an enabling milieu by opening up India’s Space sector to private players, as a result of which there is an overwhelming response from Startups and Industry.

According to Union Minister Singh, India witnessed investment of over Rs.1,000 crore in Space Startups in the last nine months of the current financial year from April to December 2023. “From just one Startup in the Space sector four years back, we have almost 190 private Space Startups after opening up of the sector and the earlier ones of them have now turned entrepreneurs,” he said.

Pointing out that about 50-60% of NASA’s projects come from private funding, Union Minister Singh said the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (NRF), which will have about 70% funding from non-Government sources, will pave the way for the PPP model in India’s S&T goals. “If we have to achieve global standards, our parameters and our yardstick have to be global,” he said.

After the success of G20 and India’s efforts towards mitigating climate change, “the world is ready to be led by us,” Singh said. (India News Network)