Topic summary

Satish Dhawan Space Centre

Satish Dhawan Space Centre

Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of ISRO, located in Sriharikota, an island in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh, India. The spaceport is located on an island off the east coast of India, surrounded by Pulicat Lake and the Bay of Bengal. The distance of Sriharikota from Chennai is 105 km (65 mi) and from Nellore is 119 km (74mi).

The centre currently has three functioning launch pads used for launching sounding rockets, polar satellites and geosynchronous satellites. India's Lunar exploration probes Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, Mars Orbiter Mission, solar research mission Aditya-L1 and space observatory XPoSat were also launched from SDSC.

Originally called Sriharikota Range (SHAR), the centre was renamed on 5 September 2002 as a tribute to ISRO's former chairman Satish Dhawan with retaining its original acronym and is referred as SDSC-SHAR.