ISRO Lays Foundation For Advanced Radar Research Centre in Assam

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) laid the foundation stone for an Advanced Radar Research Centre at Chandrapur, Assam, on September 21, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

The facility is part of ISRO's Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis (NETRA) programme. The centre is designed to strengthen India's ability to track objects in space, Sarma said. It will also help protect the country’s vital space assets, he said.

“As part of Project NETRA, this facility will strengthen India’s ability to track objects in space and protect our vital space assets,” Sarma said in a post on X.

Project NETRA is ISRO’s programme for building India's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) capabilities. The programme’s main elements include a radar, an optical telescope facility and a centralised control centre, according to ISRO.

The radar at Chandrapur will become part of this broader infrastructure. ISRO has said the programme is intended to strengthen the protection of national space assets against space-environmental hazards.

ISRO’s 2025-26 Annual Report says a 67-acre site has been identified at Chandrapur for the radar. The report says ISRO executed the Memorandum of Transfer for the land in November 2023, and completed final registration on November 7, 2025.

ISRO’s Indian Space Situational Awareness Report for 2025 said a national-level expert committee completed the design and review of an indigenous phased-array space-object tracking radar in 2025. The agency also said efforts were underway to establish an indigenously developed radar in northeastern India.

Sarma said establishing the radar centre would mark Assam’s growing role in hosting national strategic technology infrastructure. The Chandrapur facility will support India’s ongoing efforts to build indigenous capabilities for monitoring objects in space under Project NETRA.