ISRO - The Indian Space Research Organisation is the space agency of the Government of India headquartered in the city of Benga. Its vision is to "harness space technology for national development", while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration.
ISRO built India's first satellite, Aryabhata, which was launched by the Soviet Union on 19 April 1975. In 1980, Rohini was to become the first satellite to be placed in orbit by an Indian-made launch vehicle, SLV-3.
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This is how Donald Trump's intel nominee reacted when India launched 104 satellites.
Days after India successfully launched over 100 satellites in one go, US' National Intelligence Director-designate and former Senator Dan Coats on Tuesday said he was "shocked" to read the news.
Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, US President Donald Trump's top spymaster nominee said: “I was shocked the other day to read that India, on one rocket launch, deposited more than 100 satellites in space.”
Coats further said that the US cannot afford to be seen lagging behind. "They may be small in size with different functions and so forth but one rocket can send up, I think it was 104 platforms," said Coats, who if confirmed would be in-charge of all major American intelligence agencies including the CIA.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its team made the country proud when the Indian rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off successfully with 104 satellites, including the country's earth observation satellite Cartosat-2 series, from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh on February 15.
On February 15, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched a rocket that put 104 satellites into orbit around the earth, breaking a world record as it did so. It was a remarkable achievement for India’s space organisation, which has now had 36 consecutively successful launches of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles since 1994.
ISRO has consistently been in the headlines over the last few years for its rapid developments in space technology, including the cheapest Mars mission ever designed and its indigenously built cryogenic engine that will be the first step towards putting heavier loads including humans and large satellites into space.
But how does ISRO stack up against other space organisations, both government and private?
There are two ways to assess this: technological developments and commercial growth.
The Cold War era of intense rivalry between the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics led to a “space race” after the USSR launched Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite, in 1957. The two countries pushed each other to the limits to send ever-larger satellites and finally humans into space and to the moon.
The European Union, Japan, Canada, Russia and the US jointly operate the International Space Station, a habitable artificial satellite. These countries also have the world’s premier space organisations that conduct both research and launches. While the US and Russia have scaled back on human spaceflight, China is still pursuing this technology. It sent its first astronaut into space in 2008. Neither the European Space Agency nor the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have independently sent humans into space.
Along with these five, India’s is only the sixth space agency in the world to have complete launch facilities, to operate cryogenic engines and to send probes to extraterrestrial bodies.
However, India still has a long way to go. Although it successfully sent an orbiter to Mars in 2013, and was the first country to achieve this on its first attempt, India is only just beginning to harness the potential of its cryogenic engine to launch Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicles into space. These vehicles travel into higher orbit than PSLVs and can carry satellites weighing more than 2,000 kilogrammes.