Satish Dhawan Space Centre

Satish Dhawan Space Centre or Sriharikota High Altitude Range is a rocket launch centre operated by Indian Space Research Organisation . It is located in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. Sriharikota Launching Range was renamed in 2002 after ISRO's former chairman Satish Dhawan.SDSC's current director is P. Kunhikrishnan. He took over from M. Y. S. Prasad on 1 June 2015 after the latter retired from service.HistorySriharikota island was chosen in 1969 for a satellite launching station. The centre became operational in 1971 when an RH-125 sounding rocket was launched. The first attempted launch of an orbital satellite, Rohini 1A aboard a Satellite Launch Vehicle, took place on 10 Aug 1979, but due to a failure in thrust vectoring of the rocket's second stage, the satellite's orbit decayed on 19 Aug 1979. SHAR was named as 'Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR' (SDSC), on 5 September 2002, in memory of Satish Dhawan, former Chairman of the ISRO.The SHAR facility now consists of two launch pads, with the second built in 2005. The second launch pad was used for launches beginning in 2005 and is a universal launch pad, accommodating all of the launch vehicles used by ISRO. The two launch pads will allow multiple launches in a single year, which was not possible earlier. India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 launched from the centre at 6:22 AM IST on 22 October 2008. India's first Mars orbiter Mangalyaan was launched from the centre on November 5 2013, which was successfully placed into Mars orbit on 24 Sep 2014.