ISRO may develop next-gen astronomy satellite

Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is studying the possibility of developing a next-generation astronomy satellite, according to an ISRO top official, PTI reported.

The agency's initial mission on astronomy, AstroSat, launched on September 28th, 2015, with a designed life of five years, is still functional.

The chairman of the top science committee of ISRO, AS Kiran Kumar, told PTI that AstroSat is expected to last some more years, and more pathbreaking results from the mission are expected. Kumar was the chairman of the AstroSat mission team.

It was when asked about AstroSat-2, he revealed the plans for the next-gen satellite instead of planning AstroSat-2.

ISRO officials said that data from AstroSat is widely utilised to study various fields of astronomy, including galactic to intergalactic and from users worldwide. AstroSat is a multi-wavelength space observatory that has five unique X-ray and Ultraviolet telescopes working side by side.

The satellite had detected extreme UV light from a galaxy named AUDF-s01, 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth. An international team of astronomers made the discovery, including scientists from India, Switzerland, France, the USA, Japan and the Netherlands and led by Dr Kanak Saha at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. The report was published in 'Nature Astronomy.

Officials said that the satellite also observed rapid variability of high energy (particularly >20keV) X-ray emission from a black hole system. This was done for the first time.

Kiran Kumar said that AstroSat had been a successful mission, producing globally acclaimed results and publishing many papers.