NEW DELHI:
Chandrayaan-3
, the moon mission of India, experienced a delay of four seconds during launch to prevent possible collisions with
debris objects
and satellites, as disclosed in a recent report by the Indian Space Research Organisation (
Isro
) on Friday.
The chairperson of Isro, S Somanath, presented the Indian Space Situational Assessment Report (ISSAR) for 2023, an annual summary of the space scenario, which was compiled by Isro System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM) on April 2.
The space agency report said, “For LVM3-M4/ Chandrayaan-3, the nominal lift-off had to be delayed by 4 seconds based on COLA analysis to avoid close approaches between a debris object and the injected satellites in their orbital phase due to overlapping operational altitudes.”
The report stressed on the vulnerability of
space assets
to various environmental hazards, such as asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and artificial space objects.
The report read, ” Space assets operating in outer space are vulnerable to various environmental hazards- natural objects like asteroids, comets, and meteoroids, energy and particle flux, and artificial space objects. Therefore, continual awareness of the space environment and its future evolution, namely Space Situational Awareness (SSA), becomes an essential prerequisite for safe and sustainable operations in outer space.”
Indian Space Situational Assessment Report states
- The number of operational satellites owned by the Government of India is 22 in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and 29 in GEO (Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit) as of Dec 31 2023.
- Three Indian deep space missions were also active by the end of 2023, namely, Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter, Aditya-L1, and the Propulsion Module of Chandrayaan-3.
- A total of 21 Indian satellites have re-entered the atmosphere till the end of 2023.
- In the year 2023 alone, 8 Indian satellites have re-entered the atmosphere, among them Megha-tropiques-1 underwent controlled re-entry through an immensely challenging exercise.
- A total of 82 rocket bodies from Indian launches were placed in orbit till 2023. The upper stage of PSLV-C3 underwent an accidental break-up in 2001 and generated 371 debris. While most of these fragments have re-entered the atmosphere, 52 PSLV-C3 debris were still in orbit till the end of 2023.
- Among the intact Indian upper stages, 35 rocket bodies re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere till 2023 end, and 5 such re-entries took place in 2023.
- In the year 2023, all seven launches of ISRO, namely SSLV-D2/EOS7, LVM3-M3/ONEWEB_II, PSLV-C55/ TeLEOS-2, GSLV-F12 NVS-01, LVM3-M4/ Chandrayaan-3, PSLV-C56/ DS-SAR, and PSLV-C57/Aditya L-1, were successful.
- A total of 5 Indian satellites, 46 foreign satellites, and 8 rocket bodies (including POEM-2) were placed in their intended orbits.
- A total of 127 Indian satellites, including those from private operators/academic institutions, have been launched till 31st December 2023, since the beginning of the Indian space era.
Space Object Proximity Analysis report
Isro conducts analyses using IS4OM/ ISTRAC to forecast near approaches of other space objects to Indian space assets. If there is a critical close approach, collision avoidance manoeuvres (CAM) are implemented to protect the operational spacecraft. Here are the pertinent statistics for the year 2023.
The lift-off for PSLV-C56/ DS-SAR was also postponed by 1 minute to prevent any close approaches between Starlink satellites and the injected satellites in their orbital phase.
