India releases FY2024/25 space launch schedule

By Andrew Curran, Australia in Space

India’s National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has announced the country’s planned space launches for the 12 months to March 31, 2025, with more than two dozen launches pencilled over the fiscal year.

Among its other roles, IN-SPACe authorises local space operations, including those of the government space agency, the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO). Late last week, IN-SPACe released the schedule, which significantly increases the launches compared to the soonto-end current financial year and helps cement India’s place as a growing space power.

IN-SPACe has scheduled seven Gaganyann test launches during the upcoming 12 months. Gaganyaan refers to India’s program to send a crewed spacecraft into orbit as soon as 2025. It will be the country’s first crewed space mission. If it achieves this, India will become one of only four nations to have done so. In the long term, India is looking at sending its astronauts to the Moon next decade and establishing an international space station by 2040.

The schedule for the upcoming financial year also includes two commercial launches in the three months to June 30, 2024; two in the three months to September 30; four commercial launches in the three months to December 31; and four in the three months to March 31, 2025.

New Space India Limited, the commercial wing of ISRO, is undertaking around half the planned commercial launches. These include PSLV C59 in the first quarter; LVM3 M5 in the second quarter; PSLV C62, PSLV N1, and SSLV S1 in the third quarter; and PSLV N2 and SSLV S2 in the fourth quarter.

PSLV is the acronym for the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, an IRSO-developed rocket with a strong performance record. SSLV refers to the Small Satellite

Launch Vehicle, also an ISRO-developed rocket designed to cater to the microsatellite and nanosatellite market, while LVM3 refers to Launch Vehicle Mark 3, ISRO’s most powerful rocket used for large satellites and flagship missions.

Also featuring on the launch pad over the next financial year is Agnikul Comos’s Agnibaan rocket, built using 3D printers and used to ferry small satellites in space. Meanwhile, Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram I rocket is scheduled to have one launch in every quarter.

In addition, ISRO will directly fund seven launches using a mix of PSLV and the less successful Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), whose launch record is described as spotty. However, IN-SPACe did not provide quarterly timelines for the ISRO and Gaganyaan-related lift-offs.

There is no guarantee all these launches will happen, and India has a track record of overestimating the number of launches it will host each year. However, the recent emergence of private operators such as Skyroot and Agnikul Cosmos has put more launch vehicles onto the market and reduced reliance on ISRO and New Space India Limited, making planned schedules more achievable. In a statement, IN-SPACe called the growing role of private operators “a positive indicator of the expanding space ecosystem in the country.”

India has two launches scheduled before the current financial year ends. The GSLV Mk II NI-SAR and GSLV Mk II EOS-05 launches are scheduled to occur at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in March.