NEW DELHI: Chandrayaan-3, the moon mission of India, experienced a delay of four seconds during launch to prevent possible collisions with debris objects and satellites, as disclosed in a recent report by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Friday.
The chairperson of Isro, S Somanath, presented the Indian Space Situational Assessment Report (ISSAR) for 2023, an annual summary of the space scenario, which was compiled by Isro System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM) on April 2.
The space agency report said, "For LVM3-M4/ Chandrayaan-3, the nominal lift-off had to be delayed by 4 seconds based on COLA analysis to avoid close approaches between a debris object and the injected satellites in their orbital phase due to overlapping operational altitudes.”
The report stressed on the vulnerability of space assets to various environmental hazards, such as asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and artificial space objects.
The report read, " 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."
Indian Space Situational Assessment Report states
Space Object Proximity Analysis report
Isro conducts analyses using IS4OM/ ISTRAC to forecast near approaches of other space objects to Indian space assets. If there is a critical close approach, collision avoidance manoeuvres (CAM) are implemented to protect the operational spacecraft. Here are the pertinent statistics for the year 2023.
The lift-off for PSLV-C56/ DS-SAR was also postponed by 1 minute to prevent any close approaches between Starlink satellites and the injected satellites in their orbital phase.