Last reviewed 30 Sept 2026 · Facts as of 30 Sept 2026 · 11 min read
A note on status. Launch schedules and mission statuses change. The historic facts are stable; for the latest launch or mission status (for example Gaganyaan's crewed flight), check ISRO's website.
History and organisation
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1962 | INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research) set up under the DAE (Vikram Sarabhai, with Homi Bhabha's support) |
| 1963 | first sounding rocket launched from Thumba (TERLS, Kerala) — a Nike-Apache from the magnetic equator (21 November 1963) |
| 15 August 1969 | ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) formed; headquarters Bengaluru |
| 1972 | Department of Space and the Space Commission set up (June 1972) |
| 1975 | Aryabhata, the first Indian satellite (launched from the USSR's Kapustin Yar by an Intercosmos rocket, 19 April 1975) |
| 1979 | Bhaskara-I (an Earth-observation satellite) |
| 1980 | Rohini (RS-1) launched by SLV-3 — India's first satellite launched by an Indian launch vehicle; APJ Abdul Kalam was the project director; India became the sixth country with launch capacity |
| 1981 | APPLE (Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment) — the first experimental communication satellite |
| 1982 | INSAT-1A (failed); INSAT-1B (1983) successful |
| 1984 | Rakesh Sharma on the Soviet Soyuz T-11 — the first Indian in space (3 April 1984) |
| 1988 | IRS-1A (the first operational remote-sensing satellite) |
| 1993 | the first PSLV flight (PSLV-D1) failed |
| 1994 | PSLV-D2 — a success |
| 2001 | the first GSLV flight |
| 2008 | Chandrayaan-1; PSLV-C9 launched 10 satellites at once |
| 2013 | Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) |
| 2014 | GSLV Mk-II with the indigenous cryogenic stage; NavIC operational from 2016 |
| 2015 | AstroSat, the first Indian astronomy observatory |
| 2017 | PSLV-C37 launched a record 104 satellites in one launch (15 February 2017) |
| 2019 | Chandrayaan-2 (the lander Vikram lost contact); Mission Shakti (an anti-satellite test, 27 March) |
| 2020 | IN-SPACe created; a space sector opened to the private sector |
| 2023 | Chandrayaan-3 (soft landing on 23 August 2023); Aditya-L1 (2 September) |
| 2024 | XPoSat (1 January) — X-ray polarimetry; SPADEX (December) — docking demonstration |
| 2025 | SpaDeX docking achieved in January 2025 — India became the fourth country to dock spacecraft in orbit; ISRO's 100th launch (GSLV-F15, January 2025); Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla flew to the ISS on Axiom-4 (June 2025) |
- Chairmen (selected): Vikram Sarabhai (1963–71), Satish Dhawan (1972–84), U. R. Rao, K. Kasturirangan, G. Madhavan Nair, K. Radhakrishnan, A. S. Kiran Kumar, K. Sivan, S. Somanath (2022–25), V. Narayanan (from January 2025).
- National Space Day — 23 August (to mark the Chandrayaan-3 landing).
- Vikram Sarabhai is the "father of the Indian space programme"; Satish Dhawan built ISRO; U. R. Rao the "Satellite Man of India".
Centres
| Centre | Location | Role |
|---|---|---|
| ISRO Headquarters | Bengaluru | |
| Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) | Thiruvananthapuram | launch vehicles; the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station |
| U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC, formerly ISAC) | Bengaluru | satellite building |
| Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) | Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) | the main launch site; the first launchpad 1971; Kulasekarapattinam (Tamil Nadu) is being developed as a second spaceport for small satellites |
| Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) | Valiamala (Kerala) and Bengaluru | liquid and cryogenic engines |
| Space Applications Centre (SAC) | Ahmedabad | communication and remote-sensing payloads |
| National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) | Hyderabad | data reception and processing |
| ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) | Bengaluru | |
| Master Control Facility | Hassan (Karnataka) and Bhopal | INSAT control |
| Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) | Bengaluru | Gaganyaan |
| Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) | Thiruvananthapuram | |
| Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) | Ahmedabad | space science |
| Antrix Corporation (1992) and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL, 2019) | commercial arms of ISRO | |
| IN-SPACe | Ahmedabad | the regulator and promoter of private space activity (2020) |
Launch vehicles
| Vehicle | Notes |
|---|---|
| SLV-3 (Satellite Launch Vehicle) | first Indian launch vehicle (1979–83); 4 stages; solid fuel; carried the Rohini satellite to low-Earth orbit |
| ASLV | Augmented SLV (1987–94); to test technologies |
| PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) | the "workhorse" of ISRO; four stages (solid–liquid–solid–liquid); places satellites in sun-synchronous polar orbits (up to about 1,750 kg); flew the Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan missions; PSLV-XL, PSLV-CA |
| GSLV (Geosynchronous SLV) | three stages; GSLV Mk-II uses the indigenous cryogenic upper stage (CE-7.5) — tested successfully in 2014; carries the INSAT/GSAT communication satellites to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) (about 2,500 kg) |
| LVM3 (formerly GSLV Mk-III) | the heavy-lift vehicle; up to 4,000 kg to GTO and about 8,000 kg to LEO; CE-20 cryogenic engine; launched Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3, and OneWeb satellites; the vehicle for Gaganyaan (human-rated as HLVM3) |
| SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) | for small satellites (up to 500 kg) on demand; first flight 2022 (the second in 2023 was successful) |
| RLV-TD (Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator) | a winged reusable-vehicle test; RLV LEX landing experiments (2023–24) |
| Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) | a planned heavier reusable vehicle |
| Agnibaan (Agnikul) and Vikram-S / Vikram-1 (Skyroot Aerospace) | private launch vehicles; Vikram-S flew in November 2022 (the first Indian private rocket launch, from Sriharikota); Agnikul's semi-cryogenic engine launched in 2024 |
- Cryogenic engine: uses liquid hydrogen (fuel) and liquid oxygen (oxidiser) at very low temperatures. India became the sixth country (after the USA, Russia, France, Japan, China) to have cryogenic technology (with the 2014 success); the earlier Russian engines were used from 2001.
- Orbits: LEO (160–2,000 km), MEO, GEO (about 35,786 km; the period of 24 hours; above the equator), Sun-synchronous polar orbit (SSPO) (about 600–800 km) for Earth observation, polar and transfer orbits.