CHENNAI, June 20:
Buoyed by the success of the launch of its heaviest rocket GSLV-MkIII, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was gearing up for a PSLV mission to launch an earth observation satellite and 30 other satellites, including 29 from abroad, on June 23 from the spaceport of Sriharikota.
The launch would take place from the First Launch Pad at 0929 hours on Friday.
The PSLV-C38 would launch the 712 kg Cartosat-2 series satellites and 30 co-passenger satellites together weighing 243 kg at lift off into a 505 km Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit.
The Launch Authorisation Board and the Mission Readiness Review Committee was expected to meet tomorrow at the SDSC to clear the mission after which the countdown would begin for the launch.
The PSLV-C38 would be the 40th flight of the PSLV, which has 39 successive successful launches.
This will be the 17th flight of PSLV in ‘XL’ configuration (with the use of solid strap-on motors). The co-passenger satellites comprise 29 Nano satellites from 14 countries — Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and United States of America–as well as one Nano satellite from India, NIUSAT from Noorul Islam University in Tamil Nadu.
The total weight of all these satellites carried on-board PSLV-C38 is about 955 kg.
The 29 International customer Nano satellites were being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of ISRO and the International customers.
ISRO sources said Cartosat-2 Series Satellite was the primary satellite being carried by PSLV-C38.
This remote sensing satellite is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series with the objective of providing high-resolution scene specific spot imagery.
It was similar to the earlier five satellites of the Cartosast-2 series and has a design life of five years, the imageries, to be send by the panchromatic and multispectral cameras of the satellite, would be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and man made features and various other Land Information Systems (LIS) as well as Geographical Information Systems (GIS). (UNI)
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