Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is gearing up for another collaboration with the US, with its BlueBird-6 satellite, and a 6.5-tonne weighing satellite is expected to be launched by the year-end, said ISRO chairman Dr. V. Narayanan on October 23. The collaboration comes on the heels of the successful launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission (NISAR) by ISRO in July.
“Blue Bird is a communication satellite. We have received the satellite, and we are working for the launch, and the launch vehicle build-up is going on,” Narayanan said during a media briefing.
“The date will be announced by the Prime Minister Modi at the appropriate time,” he said, adding, “we are targeting to accomplish before this year’s end”. The Block 2 BlueBird communications satellite, developed by the US-based AST SpaceMobile, will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on board India’s most powerful rocket LVM3. BlueBird-6 is one of the heaviest commercial satellites, weighing 6.5 tonnes. The Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite arrived in India from the US on October 19.
Meanwhile, Narayanan also spoke about the Gaganyaan mission, the progress made under the country’s first human spaceflight mission. Narayanan revealed that development work for the Gaganyaan Mission is nearing completion, “with about 85 to 90 per cent of subsystem-level activities finalised”. “We are now conducting integrated tests and software validation. Three uncrewed missions will be launched before the crewed flight to ensure full safety and system reliability,” the ISRO Chief said .
