The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is India's national space agency, formed on August 15, 1969, under the leadership of physicist Vikram Sarabhai and now reporting to the Department of Space. From its headquarters in Bengaluru it develops launch vehicles, satellites, and exploration missions, launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the island of Sriharikota. V. Narayanan, a propulsion engineer, became chairman in January 2025.
ISRO built its reputation on low-cost, high-reliability missions. It placed the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter at the Moon in 2008, reached Mars orbit on its first attempt with the Mangalyaan probe in 2014, and in August 2023 became the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon, and the first to do so near the lunar south polar region.[1] The agency is now preparing Gaganyaan, India's first crewed spaceflight program, with an uncrewed test flight planned in 2026 and a crewed mission targeted for 2027.[2]
Chandrayaan lunar program
Chandrayaan-1 (2008) carried the instrument that helped confirm water molecules in lunar soil. Chandrayaan-2 (2019) delivered a successful orbiter, but its Vikram lander crashed during descent. Chandrayaan-3, launched on an LVM3 rocket on July 14, 2023, corrected the flaws: the Vikram lander touched down at 69 degrees south on August 23, 2023, and deployed the small Pragyan rover. The two solar-powered craft operated through one lunar day, measuring surface temperatures, sulfur in the regolith, and seismic activity, and Vikram performed a short propulsive hop before shutting down.[1]
The landing made India the fourth nation to reach the lunar surface intact, after the Soviet Union, the United States, and China, and the first to land in the south polar region that later missions from several nations now target for water ice. In a bonus demonstration, the mission's propulsion module fired its engines after the surface phase ended and returned from lunar orbit to Earth orbit, rehearsing maneuvers a sample return will need. That follow-on mission, Chandrayaan-4, received Indian cabinet approval in September 2024.[1]
Space science
Aditya-L1, India's first dedicated solar observatory, launched on a PSLV on September 2, 2023, and entered a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, on January 6, 2024. Its seven instruments observe the corona, the solar wind, and solar flares without interruption from eclipses; the spacecraft completed its first 178-day halo orbit in July 2024.[3] Other science missions include the AstroSat space telescope (2015) and the XPoSat X-ray polarimetry satellite (2024). In January 2025, the SpaDeX experiment made India the fourth country to demonstrate autonomous docking between two spacecraft, a capability required for future station and sample return plans.
Gaganyaan and human spaceflight
Gaganyaan aims to fly Indian astronauts to low Earth orbit on a human-rated version of the LVM3. A crew escape test, TV-D1, flew in October 2023, and four Indian Air Force pilots, Prasanth Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap, and Shubhanshu Shukla, were introduced as astronaut-designates in February 2024. One of them, Shubhanshu Shukla, flew to the International Space Station on the private Axiom Mission 4 in June 2025, becoming the first Indian in orbit since Rakesh Sharma in 1984 and giving the program direct spaceflight experience.
The first uncrewed orbital test, Gaganyaan-1 (G1), is in final preparation: integration of Vyommitra, a humanoid robot that will ride in the crew module and monitor its systems, began in April 2026, and ISRO has targeted launch for late 2026.[4][2] Two further uncrewed flights are planned before the crewed H1 mission, which ISRO schedules for 2027.[2] The government has also approved longer-range goals: a Bharatiya Antariksh Station (Indian space station) with a first module around 2028, and an Indian crewed lunar landing by 2040.
Launch vehicles
| Rocket | First orbital flight | Payload class | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSLV | 1993 | About 1,750 kg to Sun-synchronous orbit | Workhorse for Earth observation and small missions |
| GSLV | 2001 | About 2,500 kg to geostationary transfer orbit | Cryogenic upper stage; launched NISAR |
| LVM3 | 2017 | About 4,000 kg to GTO, 10,000 kg to LEO | Heaviest Indian rocket; Chandrayaan-3 and Gaganyaan |
| SSLV | 2022 | About 500 kg to LEO | Quick-turnaround small satellite launcher |
The PSLV has flown more than 60 missions since 1993 and once deployed 104 satellites on a single 2017 flight, then a world record. The LVM3 (formerly GSLV Mk III) is central to current plans: it launched Chandrayaan-3, carried 72 OneWeb broadband satellites across two commercial missions in 2022-2023, and is being human-rated for Gaganyaan. A second spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam, in Tamil Nadu, is under construction for small launch vehicles.
NISAR and international cooperation
NISAR, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, launched on a GSLV on July 30, 2025, into a 747-kilometer polar orbit, the first GSLV mission to a Sun-synchronous orbit. The jointly built observatory carries L-band and S-band radars that can detect centimeter-scale movement of land and ice worldwide, supporting studies of earthquakes, glaciers, and ecosystems. It is the largest space hardware collaboration to date between NASA and ISRO.[5] India signed the Artemis Accords in 2023, and ISRO cooperates with agencies including CNES and JAXA, which has partnered with ISRO on the proposed LUPEX lunar polar rover.
Commercial activities
NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), founded in 2019, is ISRO's commercial arm, selling launches and satellite services and transferring technology to industry; it managed the OneWeb LVM3 missions. The regulator IN-SPACe, created in 2020, licenses a fast-growing private sector that includes startups such as Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos, which have flown India's first private suborbital rockets. India's space budget remains modest by superpower standards, approximately 13,400 crore rupees (about 1.6 billion dollars) for 2025-26, a constraint that has shaped ISRO's cost-conscious engineering culture.
References
- Chandrayaan-3 - Wikipedia.
- India delays 1st Gaganyaan astronaut launch to 2027 - Space.com.
- Aditya-L1 - Wikipedia.
- Gaganyaan-1 - Wikipedia.
- NASA-ISRO Satellite Lifts Off to Track Earth's Changing Surfaces - NASA.