The foundation stone for the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Advanced Radar Research Centre under Project NETRA was laid at Chandrapur in Assam on Monday, September 21, marking the establishment of a major space-related infrastructure facility in the state.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced the development in a social media post, describing the facility as a strategic project aimed at strengthening India’s capabilities to track objects in space and safeguard critical space assets.
The facility is being established under ISRO’s Network for Space Objects Tracking and Analysis (NETRA) programme, which focuses on space situational awareness and monitoring of space objects. ISRO has identified a 67-acre site at Chandrapur for the radar facility. Its 2025-26 annual report said the land transfer was executed in November 2023 and final registration was completed on November 7, 2025.
Project NETRA is aimed at enhancing India’s ability to monitor the increasingly crowded space environment and protect its satellites and other space assets. ISRO has identified radar, an optical telescope facility and a centralised control centre as key components of the programme.
The ISRO Space Situational Awareness Control Centre in Bengaluru serves as the hub for space situational awareness activities. The system supports space-object tracking, orbit determination, collision-avoidance alerts and monitoring of satellite and rocket-body re-entry.
Sarma said the establishment of the radar facility in Assam reflected the state’s growing role in hosting advanced national infrastructure.
“For a state once considered far from India’s major centres of technology, it is deeply satisfying to see Assam today becoming home to such cutting-edge national infrastructure,” he said.
The chief minister also expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for selecting Assam for the strategic project.
