They say, ‘shoot for the stars so that even if you fall short you fall on the moon’. But, in the case of ISRO, there is no falling short at all.

In what sounds like a herculean task, ISRO is all set to launch 19 missions in the next seven months. After maintaining a relatively low profile for the past five months, ISRO is back to hustling. The 19 missions will include India’s very ambitious Chandrayaan-2, and the GSLV MkIII-D2 aka ‘Bahubali’.

There’s also a bit of a race going on here. As India looks to launch Chandrayaan-2 somewhere between January 3, 2019 – February 16, 2019, Isreal too is going to launch its lunar mission around the same time. The race is, who will become the fourth country after Russia, US and China to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. We bet that’s a race you don’t get to watch every day.


TOI quotes ISRO Chairman K Sivan as saying, “We are going to conduct 19 missions, including 10 satellites and 9 vehicle launches, between September and March. For ISRO, this will be the highest density period of launches as never before we had launched two satellites within 30 days consecutively for months. We will resume our services on September 15, with the PSLV C42 mission which will totally be a commercial launch.”

Cartosat-3, Risat-2BR1, Risat-2B will increase India’s surveillance capabilities. GSAT-7A is a dedicated satellite for the IAF, which will help link their bases, AWACS aircraft and ground radar stations.

Looks like ISRO has a tough 7 months ahead of it, but knowing the folks at the organisation, they’re going to come out with flying colours.