The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is gearing up for its longest and most complex mission till date – launching multiple satellites from one rocket into two different orbits. The 37th Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV takes off from Sriharikota carrying 8 satellites – three from India, three from Algeria, and one each from Canada and the US.
While SCATSAT-1 will be released first into a 730 km Polar Sunsynchronous Orbit after about 17 minutes, the rest will be injected into a lower orbit of 689 km after around two hours.
There will be two re-ignitions of the launch vehicle for this purpose, Kumar said.
Besides SCATSAT-1, the others are PRATHAM and PISAT, two academic satellites from India, ALSAT-1B, ALSAT-2B and ALSAT-1N (all from Algeria) and Pathfinder-1 and NLS-19, from USA and Canada, respectively.
The 48-and-a-half-hour countdown for PSLV-C35/SCATSAT-1 Mission started at 8:42am on Saturday.
According to ISRO, this is the first mission of PSLV in which it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits.
This will be the 15th flight of PSLV in ‘XL’ configuration with the use of solid strap-on motors, it added.
The mission objectives of SCATSAT-1 are to help provide weather forecasting services to the user communities through the generation of wind vector products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking, ISRO said.
SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for scatterometer payload carried by the earlier Oceansat-2 satellite, ISRO added.
PM Narendra Modi congratulates ISRO scientists for the successful launch of its longest and most complex mission till date. ISRO today launched eight satellites from one rocket into two different orbits.
PM Modi tweeted: “Moment of immense joy and pride for India. Congratulations to @isro on successful launch of PSLV-C35/SCATSAT-1 & 7 co-passenger satellites. Our space scientists keep scripting history. Their innovative zeal has touched the lives of 125 crore Indians & made India proud worldwide.”
