Chennai, Apr 23 : India would add another 100-150 satellites to cover the entire country over the next three years as part of enhancing border security and coastal surveillance, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said here on Wednesday.
Currently, India operates about 55 satellites and for a country which has a vast border and 7,500 km of shoreline, it is not sufficient, he said.
Narayanan, also the Secretary, Department of Space, said it was for these reasons Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced reforms in the Space Sector which allows participation of private players in building rockets and satellites.
“We need a lot of satellites to protect our borders. We have 55 satellites working and it is not sufficient to monitor the border and coastal areas. For that we need more satellites. Through Space Sector reforms we can bring in private players to build satellites and we can handhold them. In three years, we will be adding another 100-150 satellites. With all those satellites we can monitor the country completely.” he said at an event here.
He was responding to a query on what are the steps that can be taken by ISRO in the wake of the terrorist attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam in which 26 people lost their lives.
Narayanan was here at the launch of the “AI powered Robotic Compatible O-ARM with Stealth Navigation System” introduced by city-based health care provider Kauvery Hospital.
Detailing some of the projects undertaken by the space agency, he said ISRO successfully performed the second docking of satellites as part of its SpaDeX missions on Monday.
India was one of the four nations to achieve it, he said. The others are the US, Russia and China.
ISRO had launched the PSLV-C60/Space Docking Experiment mission on December 30, 2024. Thereafter, the satellites were successfully docked for the first time on January 16 and successfully undocked on March 13, he said. A second docking was done last week.
Further, Narayanan said, scientists were engaged in developing a satellite to study about climate change that would primarily serve the G20 countries.
“About 50 per cent of the payload would be built by India and the remaining would be contributed from the G20 Nations.” he said without elaborating.
Kauvery Hospital Co-founder Dr Aravindan Selvaraj, on introducing the AI powered robotic compatible technology treatment for advanced brain and spine surgeries, said, it was a cost-effective treatment. With the help of AI, details of patients can be stored and surgeries can be performed ‘effectively.’ (PTI)
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