News Excerpt:
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has released the Indian Space Situational Assessment Report (ISSAR) for 2023.
What is Space Situational Assessment?
- Space assets operating in outer space are vulnerable to various environmental hazards- natural objects like asteroids, comets, and meteoroids, energy and particle flux, and artificial space objects.
- Therefore, continual awareness of the space environment and its future evolution, namely Space Situational Awareness (SSA), becomes an essential prerequisite for safe and sustainable operations in outer space.
Space Situational Assessment by ISRO:
- ISRO’s SSA activities include close approach assessment of satellites and launch vehicles, prediction of atmospheric re-entry, the study of the evolution of space object population to safeguard national space assets, and also promoting responsible behaviour while conducting operations in outer space.
- An annual assessment of the prevailing space situation is also compiled in the form of the Indian Space Situational Assessment Report (ISSAR) for reference and dissemination to the relevant stakeholders.
- ISSAR was compiled by ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM).
The highlights of the latest space situational assessment for the year 2023 are presented here:
Global Scenario:
- The space object population continued to show a growing trend, indicative of better accessibility to space and the increasingly diverse applications of space technology in day-to-day life.
- During the year 2023, more space objects were placed in orbit compared to the previous year.
- A total of 3143 objects originating from 212 launches and on-orbit break-up events were added to the space object population in 2023 compared to 2533 objects from 179 launches in 2022.
- There were five major on-orbit break-up events in 2023.
- Some of these fragments decayed within the same year, resulting in a net addition of 69 fragmented objects to the population of space debris by the end of 2023.
Indian Scenario:
- Since the beginning of the Indian space era, a total of 127 Indian satellites, including those from private operators/academic institutions, have been launched till 31st December 2023.
- As of 31 Dec 2023, the number of operational satellites owned by the Govt. of India is 22 in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and 29 in GEO (Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit).
- In addition, three Indian deep space missions were also active by the end of 2023, namely, Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter, Aditya-L1, and the Propulsion Module of Chandrayaan-3.
- A total of 21 Indian satellites have re-entered the atmosphere till the end of 2023.
- In the year 2023 alone, 8 Indian satellites have re-entered the atmosphere, among them Megha-tropiques-1 underwent controlled re-entry through an immensely challenging exercise.
- In the year 2023, all seven launches of ISRO, namely SSLV-D2/EOS7, LVM3-M3/ONEWEB_II, PSLV-C55/ TeLEOS-2, GSLV-F12 NVS-01, LVM3-M4/ Chandrayaan-3, PSLV-C56/ DS-SAR, and PSLV-C57/Aditya L-1, were successful.
- A total of 5 Indian satellites, 46 foreign satellites, and 8 rocket bodies (including POEM-2) were placed in their intended orbits by ISRO.
