New Delhi, April 17 (IANS). The Indian Space Situational Awareness Report 2025 (ISSAR-2025) has revealed an unprecedented growth in space activities. According to the report, the year 2025 was the busiest year since the beginning of the space age.
According to a latest report, a total of 328 space launches were attempted globally in the year 2025, out of which 315 missions were completed successfully. Through these missions, a total of 4,651 new space objects including 4,198 operational satellites were placed in their designated orbits. This increase in space activities is remarkable compared to previous years. According to the data, 2,963 objects were sent into space through 254 launches in the year 2024, while in 2023 the number was 3,135 through 212 launches. Thus, an unprecedented annual increase of about 74.5 percent has been recorded in the number of space objects in the year 2025.
According to the report, the major reason for this record growth was the rideshare launch missions. The Transporter 12, 13, 14, and 15 missions (January 14, March 15, June 2, and November 28) typically contained more than 70 payloads. Maximum 140 payloads were launched on 28 November. Two batches of Starlink launched simultaneously on 28 April 2025. Soyuz-2.1b delivered 52 payloads on 28 December. Of the total 10,749 Starlink satellites, 9,396 are still in orbit, while 1,353 have re-entered.
At the same time, concern has been expressed in the report on the situation of space debris. A total of 1911 objects re-entered the atmosphere in the year 2025. These included 1002 known spacecraft, 657 debris objects, 108 rocket bodies and 144 unidentified objects. The good thing is that no major fragmentation event occurred in orbit in 2025. Interest of private companies in lunar exploration increased. Four private missions to the Moon were launched in 2025, with Blue Ghost Mission 1 setting the record for the first private soft landing on the Moon.
The increasing congestion in the lower orbit of space can be gauged from the fact that about 1,60,000 alerts were received from nearby satellites in space. Experts estimate that in the future, the number of active satellites may exceed space debris, which will further increase the challenges of space traffic management. These include GSLV-F15/NVS-02, PSLV-C61/EOS-9, GSLV-F16/NISAR, LVM-M5/CMS-03 and LVM-M6/Blue Bird Block-2. GSLV-F15 was the 100th launch of an Indian launch vehicle.
At the same time, NASA-ISRO joint mission NISAR was successfully launched on 30 July 2025. CMS-03 was also successfully installed. However, due to a problem with the third stage in PSLV-C61, EOS-9 could not reach orbit. In total, 8 Indian satellites will be placed in orbit in 2025.
–IANS
MT/ASS
