ISRO's Second Vehicle Assembly Building(SVAB) is being realised as an additional integration facility, with suitable interfacing to a second launch pad at Sriharikota, even as the space agency plans to increase its launch frequencyto more than 12 missions per year.
Five launches per year have been achieved during the last two years and it is targeted to increase the launchfrequency to eight missions in the immediate future and more than12 missions per year subsequently, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said today.
Towards meeting these future targets, SVAB isbeing realised as an additional integration facility with suitable interfacing to second launch pad, it said.
Necessary augmentations are planned in Solid Motor production and other launch base infrastructure, it added.
With the successful lift-off of the PSLV-C29 launch vehicle carrying six Singapore satellites on December 16, 2015 from the first Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), SHAR; ISRO marked a history as it completed 50 launches from the spaceport.
Out of 50 launches from Sriharikota, 32 were Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), nine are Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), four Satellite Launch Vehicle(SLV), four Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) and one GSLVMkIII-X.
Stating that the journey started with the realisation of facilities for integration and launch of the firstSatellite Launch Vehicle SLV-3, ISRO said initiallyindependent launch pads were realised for the first generationlaunch vehicles of SLV-3 and ASLV.
Subsequently, two versatile launch pads, namelyFirst Launch Pad and Second Launch Pad were realised and bothhave provisions to integrate and launch the presentoperational vehicles of PSLV and GSLV.
The Second Launch Pad is augmented to meet requirements of integration and launch of next generationlaunch vehicle GSLV MkIII.
In parallel, facilities have been established for production of Solid Motors required for all launch vehicles of ISRO,the space agency added.
Out of 50 launches from Sriharikota, 43 were successful and seven were unsuccessful, including the firstlaunch SLV-3 E1 on August 10, 1979.
After the success of the Mars mission, ISRO, which is
currently conducting experiments for its second moon mission said another mission to Mars, Venus andJupiter are on the horizon and studies are underway.
"As we are progressing, we need to look at long-term. So what we are looking beyond Chandrayan-2, for which we are already working on an approved programme," Kumar said.
"Beyond that, Mars second mission and Venus missionare all on the horizon, we have to go through the variousstudies and then formulate, get the approval and move. Right now, they are all in the study phase," he added.
ISRO is conducting tests for hazard avoidance for Chandrayaan-2 as it lands at its facility in Challakere in Chitradurga district of Karnataka, where simulated lunar craters have been created to evaluate the performance of the system.
The ISRO Chairman and French Space agency(CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall in the presence of visitingFrench Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault had on Monday signed a partnership agreement in satellite launch technology.
To a question on the agreement, Kumar said "Currently we are working with them on Oceansat-3... Andthen we are working for a future payload, on an infraredimaging sensor."
"We are also looking at possibilities of working with them in various areas of future developments of satellites, launch vehicles," he added.
ISRO in the past had worked with CNES on sounding rockets, SARAL satellites programme and had also launched satellites for them.
