September 28, 2025

On September 28, 2025 AstroSat (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat.html) India’s first multi wavelength space observatory dedicated for astronomy, completed a decade filled with groundbreaking discoveries and dedicated service to the global scientific community. AstroSat was launched aboard the PSLV-C30 on September 28, 2015 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. AstroSat is capable of observing the universe simultaneously in broad energy range from ultraviolet (UV), visible, and high energy X-rays rendering it a powerful tool for understanding various cosmic phenomena.

AstroSat began its scientific journey by solving a two decade old puzzle involving a red giant star unusually bright in both ultraviolet (UV) light and Infrared. Since then, it has continued to deliver remarkable results. Among its many outstanding discoveries is the detection of far-UV photons from an astonishing distance of around 9 billion light-years captured using the sharpest, wide angle UV eye in space (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat discover.html), showing that the emission from butterfly nebula extends three times more than earlier known size (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat_Picture_of_the_month_Oct_2018.html), X-ray polarization studies (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat Picture of the Month (May 2018).html), a star reliving its youth (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat Picture apr3.html), merging of galaxies (https://www.isro.gov.in/AstroSat Picture of the Month(June 2018).html), discovery of very fast spinning black holes and numerous other findings on X-ray emission from binary stars in the Milky way.

AstroSat is a real example of multi institute mission. In addition to major ISRO centers like URSC, LEOS, SAC, VSSC, PRL many Indian research institutes like TIFR, IIA, IUCAA have contributed to the development of four out of the five scientific payloads onboard AstroSat. UVIT and SXT also collaborated with Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and University of Leicester, UK respectively making AstroSat a true international collaboration effort.

The global nature of AstroSat becomes more prominent when we consider the users of AstroSat. AstroSat has a registered userbase close to 3400 from 57 countries world over from countries like US to Afghanistan and Angola.

Within India, AstroSat has helped popularize space science, bringing astrophysics research into 132 Indian universities. About half of the observatory's users are Indian scientists and students, fostering a new generation of astronomers.

Though AstroSat has far exceeded its design life, all the five scientific experiments onboard AstroSat are working satisfactorily and the observatory is expected to continue to provide many more new and exciting results in the coming years.