With the ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operation and Management, India has increased its self-reliance in protecting its space assets (IS4OM). Union Minister of State for Space Jitendra Singh will launch the IS4OM in Bengaluru on Monday, alongside Secretary of State for Space and Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization S Somanath.
According to ISRO, IS40M is a system designed with a holistic approach to ensuring the safety and sustainability of the space environment while reaping the benefits of long-term use of outer space for national development.
“It’s part of the space situational awareness (SSA) programme to identify and monitor space debris,” an ISRO official explained. “It’s to identify the potential collision of our active satellites with other space objects and avoid collisions with proper maneuvering to save our space assets (satellites),” he said.
According to sources at the Bengaluru-based space agency, data from observational facilities will be processed concurrently here for orbit determination, correlation, and catalogue generation of space objects.
Dedicated labs have also been set up
In addition, as part of IS4OM, dedicated labs have also been set up for space debris mitigation and remediation, compliance verification of UN/Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) guidelines and various R&D activities. The R&D activities encompass space object fragmentation and break up modelling, space debris population and micrometeoroid environment modeling, and Near
Earth Objects, among others.
IS4OM will boost our self-reliance (‘atmanirbharata’) in protecting our own space assets and also meeting UN directions on Debris management”, a top ISRO official said.
Sharing its “Space Situational Assessment 2021” in global perspective in March 2022, ISRO said growing collision threats of space objects including orbital debris with the operational space assets have become a perennial problem for the safe and sustainable use of outer space.
“Control room/ lab with consoles, software, displays which is the operational system, which is realised within the control centre, will be inaugurated on july 11.”
