India's space agency pauses rocket launches to make coronavirus supplies: report

By Meghan Bartels March 30, 2020

ISRO is making ventilators and hand sanitizer.

As the coronavirus-borne disease COVID-19 spreads around the world, India's space agency has responded by pausing launches and pivoting resources to develop ventilators and hand sanitizer, according to local media reports.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) oversees the country's launches and spacecraft missions, including its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket and the Chandrayaan-2 mission currently orbiting the moon. As work on forthcoming missions pauses, the agency has redirected its focus to aid the fight against COVID-19. “We are designing a ventilator and making hand sanitizers and distributing them," S. Somanath, head of agency's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, told the Times of India.