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Physical Research Laboratory
Ahmedabad research laboratory of India's Department of Space, founded by Vikram Sarabhai in 1947, that builds instruments for the country's lunar, solar and planetary missions.
The Physical Research Laboratory is an autonomous unit of India's Department of Space and describes itself as the cradle of space sciences in India. Vikram Sarabhai founded it in Ahmedabad on 11 November 1947, and K. R. Ramanathan served as its first director. C. V. Raman laid the foundation stone of the main campus on 15 February 1952, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the building, designed by the architect Achyut Kanvinde, on 10 April 1954. The laboratory sits in Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, and a second campus at Thaltej houses its planetary exploration programme, PLANEX.
Research runs across seven scientific divisions: astronomy and astrophysics, atomic, molecular and optical physics, planetary sciences, theoretical physics, space and atmospheric sciences, geosciences, and solar physics. The observing facilities include the Mount Abu Observatory at Gurushikhar in Rajasthan, sited at 1,680 metres for its low water vapour and more than 220 observable nights, where a 1.2-metre telescope achieved first light on 19 November 1994 and a 2.5-metre telescope built with the Belgian firm AMOS completed its site acceptance test in October 2022. PRL also runs a solar observatory at a lake site in Udaipur, the Gulmarg High Altitude Research Laboratory established in 1963, and radio telescopes at Rajkot, Surat and Thaltej.
The laboratory's instruments fly on India's planetary missions: the High Energy X-ray Spectrometer on Chandrayaan-1, the Solar X-ray Monitor on Chandrayaan-2, and both the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer and Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment on Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3. APXS reads the elemental composition of surface soil and rock using a curium-244 source and a silicon drift detector with 135 eV resolution at 5.9 keV. On 31 August 2023 ISRO reported that the PRL-built APXS had detected sulphur along with aluminium, silicon, calcium and iron at the Chandrayaan-3 landing site, confirming through a second technique the sulphur measurement the rover's laser spectroscope had returned a day earlier. The experiment reached the lunar surface at the second attempt: Chandrayaan-2's Pragyan rover, carrying the same instrument, was destroyed when the Vikram lander crashed on 6 September 2019.
Aditya-L1, launched on 2 September 2023 and placed in orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point on 6 January 2024, carries PRL's Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment. ASPEX pairs a Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer covering 100 eV to 20 keV with a Supra Thermal Energetic Particle Spectrometer covering 20 keV to 20 MeV. In December 2025 its data was reported as the first experimental confirmation of a 40-year-old prediction that medium-energy solar particles distribute isotropically in calm solar wind. At Mount Abu, the PARAS and PARAS-2 spectrographs had produced five confirmed exoplanets by February 2025, starting with K2-236b in 2018 and most recently the dense sub-Saturn TOI-6038A b at 78.5 Earth masses, 6.41 Earth radii and a 5.83-day orbit. Five further PRL instruments are in development for the Venus Orbiter Mission, which the Union Cabinet approved on 18 September 2024 with a budget of ₹1,236 crore for a launch planned on 29 March 2028. The laboratory's own budget for 2025-26 was ₹240.00 crore.
What they build and operate
- Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) · Component · Operational
Rover instrument using a curium-244 source and a silicon drift detector; detected sulphur, aluminium, silicon, calcium and iron at the Chandrayaan-3 landing site in August 2023.[4][16][12] - Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) · Component · Operational
Aditya-L1 payload pairing the Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer, covering 100 eV to 20 keV, with the Supra Thermal Energetic Particle Spectrometer, covering 20 keV to 20 MeV; flight model delivered in May 2022.[5][4][15] - Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) · Component
Lunar surface thermophysical probe developed and delivered for the Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3 missions, according to PRL's own payload list.[4] - Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) · Component
Solar X-ray monitoring instrument developed and delivered for Chandrayaan-2, according to PRL's own payload list.[4] - High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) · Component
High-energy X-ray spectrometer developed and delivered for Chandrayaan-1, according to PRL's own payload list.[4] - PARAS-2 · Component · Operational
Stabilised radial-velocity spectrograph integrated with the 2.5-metre Mount Abu telescope in June 2022, working at a resolution of 107,000 and a stated sensitivity of 50 cm per second.[3][11] - Venus Orbiter Mission payload set · Component · In development
Five instruments in development for the Venus Orbiter Mission: VODEX, LIVE, VeRAD, VS3 and a Retarding Potential Analyser.[4][10] - PRATHIMA · Component · In development
Permittivity and Thermo-physical Investigation for Moon's Aquatic Scout, in development for the ISRO-JAXA LUPEX rover, according to PRL's own payload list.[4]
Milestones
- 11 November 1947
Vikram Sarabhai founded the laboratory in Ahmedabad, with K. R. Ramanathan as its first director.[8][1] - 10 April 1954
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the main campus building, whose foundation stone C. V. Raman had laid on 15 February 1952.[8] - 1963
Gulmarg High Altitude Research Laboratory established.[8] - 19 November 1994
The 1.2-metre telescope at the Mount Abu Observatory saw first light.[3] - 2018
PRL scientists reported K2-236b, India's first exoplanet detection, about 600 light years from Earth.[8][11] - 06 September 2019
Chandrayaan-2's Pragyan rover, carrying PRL's APXS and ChaSTE instruments, was destroyed when the Vikram lander crashed on the Moon.[9][4] - May 2022
ASPEX flight model delivered for the Aditya-L1 mission.[5] - October 2022
Site acceptance test completed for the 2.5-metre Mount Abu telescope, built with the Belgian firm AMOS.[3][11] - June 2023
Param Vikram-1000 high-performance computing cluster set up at PRL.[6] - 31 August 2023
ISRO reported that PRL's APXS had detected sulphur, aluminium, silicon, calcium and iron at the Chandrayaan-3 landing site.[12][13] - February 2025
PRL announced TOI-6038A b, a dense sub-Saturn found with PARAS-2 and the fifth exoplanet detected with the PARAS spectrographs.[14] - December 2025
ASPEX data from Aditya-L1 was reported as the first experimental confirmation of a 40-year-old solar wind particle prediction.[15]
Facilities
- Mount Abu Observatory · Gurushikhar, Mount Abu, Rajasthan, India
Optical and infrared observatory at 1,680 metres operating 2.5-metre, 1.2-metre, 50-centimetre and 43-centimetre telescopes.[3][11] - Udaipur Solar Observatory · Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Lake-site observatory for solar astronomy research.[7][8] - Thaltej campus · Thaltej, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Second campus hosting the planetary exploration programme, PLANEX.[7] - Gulmarg High Altitude Research Laboratory · Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir, India
High-altitude research laboratory established in 1963.[8] - Param Vikram-1000 · Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
High-performance computing cluster with 108 nodes, 7,296 CPU cores, 74 TB of RAM and a 1 PB parallel filesystem, rated at 1395.63 TeraFlop/s peak.[6]
Leadership
Sources
Physical Research LaboratoryHome Pageprl.res.in
Physical Research LaboratoryOur Directorprl.res.in
Physical Research LaboratoryMount Abu Observatoryprl.res.in
Physical Research LaboratoryPIDS - Homeprl.res.in
Physical Research LaboratoryAditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX)prl.res.in
Physical Research LaboratoryParam Vikram-1000prl.res.in
ISROPhysical Research Laboratory (PRL)isro.gov.in
WikipediaPhysical Research Laboratoryen.wikipedia.org
WikipediaPragyan (Chandrayaan-2)en.wikipedia.org
WikipediaVenus Orbiter Missionen.wikipedia.org
ThePrintMount Abu observatory is India's eye on the sky. It's hunting for Earth's distant cousinstheprint.in
Business TodayChandrayaan 3 update: Another instrument on Pragyan rover confirms presence of sulphur on Moonbusinesstoday.in
Al JazeeraIndia's Chandrayaan-3 rover confirms sulphur on moon's south polealjazeera.com
Tech ExploristIndian scientists discovered a dense sub-Saturn size exoplanettechexplorist.com
Indian MastermindsISRO's Solar Observatory Aditya-L1 Provides First Direct Proof of 40-Year-Old Solar Wind Theoryindianmasterminds.com
arXivAlpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) On-board Chandrayaan-2 Rover -- Pragyanarxiv.org
Coverage of Physical Research Laboratory
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