Kulasekharapatnam Spaceport is an under-development spaceport in India. It is being built as ISRO's second spaceport. The spaceport is being constructed over 2,350 acres. As of July 2022, the acquisition of around 1950 acres (nearly 83%) of land has been completed.

Location

The spaceport is located at Kulasekharapatnam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Background

ISRO's Sriharikota Spaceport is ideal for launching heavy rockets, but poses a major threat during the launch of smaller rockets.

Sriharikota Sriharikota is a Barrier island off the Bay of Bengal coast located in the Shar Project settlement of Tirupati district in Andhra Pradesh, India. It houses the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, one of the two satellite launch centres in India (the o ...

presents a threat when rockets are launched in polar orbit (circling the Earth above the poles). The island nation of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

is in the path of a rocket traveling to the South Pole from the Sriharikota spaceport. Given the huge risk of flying over a country, India's rockets are programmed to perform a maneuver to avoid Sri Lanka's landmass. So, instead of flying in a straight line, the rocket follows a curved path. To perform this maneuver, the rocket has to burn a reasonable amount of fuel. While big rockets can perform this maneuver without much impact on the rocket's payload carrying capacity, but smaller rockets such as the

SSLV The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is a small-lift launch vehicle developed by ISRO with payload capacity to deliver to low Earth orbit () or to Sun-synchronous orbit () for launching small satellites, with the capability to support ...

consume a lot of fuel. Fuel consumption to follow a curved trajectory means the rocket's payload capacity is reduced. To avoid this problem,

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...

has undertaken the construction of the Kulasekharapatnam Spaceport, from which small rockets can be launched in a straight line without the risk of crossing Sri Lanka's landmass and save fuel.

Facilities

This port will mainly be used by ISRO for launching small payloads.

References

{{ISRO facilities Spaceports Rocket launch sites in India Space programme of India Indian Space Research Organisation facilities Buildings and structures in Kanyakumari district