ISRO 'very busy' with various exploration missions in pipeline: Chairman
Chennai (PTI): ISRO has lined up a series of exploration missions including to Mars, Venus and to the Moon again, apart from the maiden human spaceflight programme, Chairman S Somanath said.
The space agency also has drawn up plans to launch missions for studying climate and weather conditions of the Earth, the space agency chief said, speaking to reporters on Sunday.
Besides, ISRO is also working on regular scientific missions including communication, remote sensing satellites, Somanath, who is also the Secretary of the Department of Space, said here.
Speaking about the Gaganyaan programme, he said the maiden TV-D1 test flight is scheduled for October 21.
Elaborating about the upcoming missions undertaken by the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, he said, "We have exploration missions. We have plans to go to Mars, Venus, again sometime to the Moon. We also have programmes to look at the climate and weather of Earth.".
Stressing that the scientists at ISRO would be focused on taking up regular missions like launching satellites for communications and remote sensing, he said scientific missions are also in the pipeline to look at issues like aeronomy, thermal imaging, and climate change impact assessment.
"So many things are there and we are very busy doing all of this," he said.
To a query about whether scientists were able to receive any kind of response from the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which successfully made a soft-landing on the surface of the Moon on August 23, he said Vikram had done its job very well during the lunar day (equivalent of 14 Earth days) at which time it was programmed to perform its functions.
"It is happily sleeping on the Moon. It has done its job very well. Maybe if it wishes to wake up, let it wake up. Until then, we will wait," he said. ISRO made efforts to re-establish communication with rover Pragyan and lander Vikram after they were put into sleep mode in September following the onset of night on the Moon.
"No signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue," ISRO had said.
After the historic landing on August 23, lander Vikram and rover Pragyan performed different tasks on the lunar surface, including detecting the presence of sulphur and recording relative temperature.
About ISRO's maiden mission to study the Sun, Somanath said the spacecraft is ‘very healthy’ and is on a 110-day long journey to the Lagrange point L1 and is expected to reach the intended destination by “middle of January.”.
"It is a long journey. It is almost 110 days of journey and it has covered some distance now. We corrected a little bit of its trajectory, because early correction is important to reach the L1 point. After tracking, we find it is going in the right direction towards the L1 point," he said.
Observing that the rocket is on a ‘complex travel’, Somanath said, "It takes almost another 70-75 days further to reach. By the middle of January, it will reach there. After that, we will make some corrections to make it enter into the Halo orbit at the L1 point.".
"After that instruments will be switched on and it will start doing the scientific data streaming. Currently, everything is very healthy on Aditya L1," he said.
Aditya-L1 was launched on September 2, and it is the first Indian space-based observatory that will study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth.
Earlier, Somanath visited the residence of renowned agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan, who passed away on September 28. He met the family members of the eminent plant geneticist known as the driving force behind India’s ‘Green Revolution’, here in the city.
"I am here today just to pay my tributes and my affection to his (M S Swaminathan’s) contribution… Whoever works in whichever field whether it is space, agriculture or sustainability and many other domains, we all find a place to work together," he said.
"Thank you so much for the opportunity. His (M S Swaminathan’s) legacy will continue to inspire more young people in the country to work in science and technology." Somanath said.
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None of Adani portfolio companies subject to any legal case: Group CFO on promoter indictment in US
New Delhi, Nov 23: None of Adani group portfolio companies, comprising 11 listed firms, have been accused of any wrongdoing, conglomerate's CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh said on founder and chairman Gautam Adani's indictment on bribery charges in the US.
In a post on X, Singh said the group would make a detailed comment on the US indictment once it gets counsel approvals.
Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar Adani, allegedly agreed to pay about USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that were expected to yield USD 2 billion of profit over 20 years, according to an indictment unsealed in a New York court on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the US has also charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global, for "conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme".
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing," Singh said.
He hastened to add that no court has ruled on the indictment, and as outlined by lawyers of the US Department of Justice, these are "allegations and the accused have a presumption of innocence".
The CFO, who was the first line of defence when US short-seller Hindenburg Research had accused the ports-to-power conglomerate of fraud in January 2023, said the group became aware of the "specificity" of the US indictment against founder and chairman Gautam Adani two days ago.
"We were aware that something is afoot (and in February 2024 144a offering circular in Risk Factors we disclosed as such. This was the first public issuance of any of our portfolio companies or their subsidiaries or joint venture companies after our annual results of 31st March 2023)," he said.
He, however, did not state what the company had disclosed in February 2024.
Adani Group, he said, has a portfolio of 11 public companies and "none are subject to indictment (i.e. defendants in any legal proceedings in the recent DOJ lawyer filings to a court in NYC)".
"None of the issuers (i.e. companies in our portfolio or specific issuers that are subsidiaries of the public companies) are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing," he said.
The indictment "relates to one contract of Adani Green, which is roughly 10 per cent of overall business of Adani Green (there is a lot more precise and comprehensive detail of this which we will elaborate in an appropriate forum)," he said.
The statement comes two days after Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors over his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 265 million (about RS 2,200 crore) bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts. The conglomerate has denied the allegations, calling them baseless, and announced plans to seek legal recourse.
The Adani Family has 11 listed entities on the Indian stock exchanges - flagship incubator Adani Enterprises Ltd, electricity producer Adani Power Ltd, ports company Adani Ports & SEZ, power transmission firm Adani Energy Solutions Limited, renewable arm Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL), city gas distributor Adani Total Gas Ltd, commodities firm Adani Wilmar Ltd, media firm New Delhi Television Ltd and cement companies Ambuja Cements Limited, ACC Ltd, and Sanghi Industries Ltd.
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing (Please note that no court has ruled on this and as outlined by lawyers of DOJ these are 'allegations and accused have a presumption of innocence'). We will make a more detailed comment once we get counsel approvals to discuss what we can in public on a matter that is sub-judice," he added.
