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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to develop one of the tallest rockets ever built by man – – a nextgen launch vehicle as high as a 40-storey building (over 120 meters) to put a 75,000 kg (75-tonne) payload in low Earth orbit (LEO), ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said on Tuesday.
“Do you know what the capacity of a rocket (launcher) is? The first launcher, which was built by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Ji, had a 17- tonne lift-off mass and was capable of placing 35 kg in LEO,” Narayanan said at the 84th convocation ceremony of Osmania University (OU) in Hyderabad. “Fifty years ago, we were in the phase of launching the first satellite. Now, we are shoulder to shoulder with every developed nation,” Narayanan said.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX currently holds the distinction of building the world’s tallest rocket – Starship – which stands nearly 122 meters tall. On India’s ambitions to put man on the moon, the ISRO Chief said that, as suggested by PM Modi during his meeting with Shubhanshu Shukla, ISRO is in the process of developing a pool of 40 to 50 astronauts for India’s future Space missions. This even as ISRO is already in advanced stages of its Gaganyaan human Space flight mission, where Indians astronauts will travel to Space on an Indian rocket for the first time. The Chandrayaan-4 programme is already approved and this mission shall be planned as a sample-return mission,” Narayanan added.
(TOI)
