Formerly known as the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), ISRO was set up in 1962 by then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the recommendation of scientist Vikram Sarabhai.

[12] Modern space research in India can be traced to the 1920s, when scientist S. K. Mitra conducted a series of experiments sounding the ionosphere through ground-based radio in Kolkata.

It was followed by a successful launch in 1980 carrying a Rohini Series-I satellite, making India the seventh country to reach Earth's orbit after the USSR, the US, France, the UK, China and Japan.

[25] ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) was set up in 1985 and started working on a more powerful engine, Vikas, based upon the French Viking.

As a result, KVD-1 engines were imported from Russia under a new agreement which had limited success[33] and a project to develop indigenous cryogenic technology was launched in 1994, taking two decades to reach fulfillment.

[38] In 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee urged scientists to develop technologies to land humans on the Moon[39] and programmes for lunar, planetary and crewed missions were started.

It consists of an orange arrow shooting upwards attached with two blue coloured satellite panels with the name of ISRO written in two sets of text, orange-coloured Devanagari on the left and blue-coloured English in the Prakrta typeface on the right.

And we should note that the application of sophisticated technologies and methods of analysis to our problems is not to be confused with embarking on grandiose schemes, whose primary impact is for show rather than for progress measured in hard economic and social terms.The former president of India and chairman of DRDO, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, said:[61] Very many individuals with myopic vision questioned the relevance of space activities in a newly independent nation which was finding it difficult to feed its population.

[91][92] To reduce dependency on North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) for space situational awareness and protect the civilian and military assets, ISRO is setting up telescopes and radars in four locations to cover each direction.

[94] For early warning, ISRO began a ₹400 crore (4 billion; US$53 million) project called Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis (NETRA).

[99] On 7 March 2023, ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM) conducted successful controlled re-entry of decommissioned satellite Megha-Tropiques after firing four on-board 11 Newton thrusters for 20 minutes each.

[31] All the satellites are placed in polar Sun-synchronous orbit (except GISATs) and provide data in a variety of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions to enable several programs to be undertaken relevant to national development.

[102] They support a wide range of applications including optical, radar and electronic reconnaissance for Indian agencies, city planning, oceanography and environmental studies.

A national plan for satellite navigation including implementation of a Technology Demonstration System (TDS) over Indian airspace as a proof of concept has been prepared jointly by Airports Authority of India and ISRO.

AltiKa measures ocean surface topography with an accuracy of 8 mm (0.31 in), compared to 2.5 cm (0.98 in) on average using altimeters, and with a spatial resolution of 2 km (1.2 mi).

It will use simulation facilities to train the selected astronauts in rescue and recovery operations and survival in microgravity, and will undertake studies of the radiation environment of space.

[139] An ISRO Technical Liaison Unit (ITLU) was to be set up in Moscow to facilitate the development of some key technologies and establishment of special facilities which are essential to support life in space.

[145][146] "Giving out broad contours of the planned space station, Dr. Sivan said it has been envisaged to weigh 20 tonnes and will be placed in an orbit of 400 km above earth where astronauts can stay for 15-20 days.

Its observation study includes active galactic nuclei, hot white dwarfs, pulsations of pulsars, binary star systems, and supermassive black holes located at the centre of the galaxy.

It entered lunar orbit on 8 November 2008, carrying high-resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies.

[167] The Vikram lander, carrying the Pragyan rover, was scheduled to land on the near side of the Moon, in the south polar region at a latitude of about 70° S at approximately 1:50 am(IST) on 7 September 2019.

The study project is being conducted by BSIP's Binita Phartiyal, IISc's Aloke Kumar who pioneered the idea of building space-bricks from biologically solidified lunar and martian regolith, and Gaganyaan astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla.

An important step forward in India's efforts to develop human spaceflight and analog research in support of the Gaganyaan program and future missions like Bharatiya Antariksha Station.

The main objective of the mission is to study coronal mass ejections (CMEs), their properties (the structure and evolution of their magnetic fields for example), and consequently constrain parameters that affect space weather.

[185] On 6 January 2024, Aditya-L1 spacecraft, India's first solar mission, has successfully entered its final orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

The time frame is 5–7 years after Gaganyaan, he stated,[147] to develop electric and nuclear propulsion for satellites and spacecraft to reduce their weight and extend their service lives.

[27] India's own rockets lack the capacity for launching very heavy satellites to the geostationary orbit beyond 4 ton class, a problem that is planned to be fixed with the introduction of the NGLV.

One is the ADMIRE test vehicle, conceived as a VTVL system and another is RLV-TD programme, being run to develop an autonomous spacecraft which will be launched vertically but land like a plane.

[250][251] ISRO has signed various formal cooperative arrangements in the form of either Agreements or Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) or Framework Agreements with Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Norway, Peru, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Oman, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Netherlands, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Vietnam.

[252] ISRO has two collaborative satellite missions with France's CNES, namely the now retired Megha-Tropiques to study water cycle in the tropical atmosphere[255] and the presently avtive SARAL for altimetry.