Sriharikota to get third launch pad

To support these launches, Isro is planning to set up a "high-tech" third launch pad at Sriharikota space station

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has lined up around 50 missions in the next five years.

To support these, the organisation was planning to set up a “high-tech” third launch pad at the Sriharikota space station, near Chennai, before 2016.

K Radhakrishnan, Isro chairman, said: “We require one more launch pad to carry heavy payloads and that would come up here in two years.”

The new launch pad would mainly support the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III (GSLV Mk-III), which would carry heavier satellites.

The Centre had approved setting up an assembly centre. A study was underway, he said, talking after the successful launch of the GSLV-D5 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
 

Officials added, the assembling facility and launch pad will come up in three square kilometer area, which is bigger then the measurement of the existing two launch pads, and it would require around Rs 500 crore of investment.

 

The new complex will provide complete support for the vehicle assembly, fueling, checkout and launch operations. Besides, it will have facilities for launching rockets meant for studying the earth’s atmosphere.

 

The complex will also have a new mobile pedestals, umbilical towers, emergency exits, ground escape system, crew ingress and egress systems, safety bunkers, material handling equipment and related electrical systems, said Isro.