Indian Space Research Organisation's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) placed into orbit in one single mission all the seven spacecraft—Indo-French oceanographic study satellite 'SARAL' and 6 foreign mini and micro satellites(In 2008, India successfully launched 10 satellites in a single mission)
The 6 satellites are -
The 6 satellites include two each from Canada and Austria and one each from Denmark and Britain.
SAPPHIRE and NEOSSat (Canada)
AAUSAT3 (Denmark)
micro satellites BRITE and UniBRITE from Austria and
STRaND from United Kingdom
with a combined weight of 259.5 kg.
The PSLV-C20 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in clear weather at 6.01 pm at the end of the 59-hour countdown, marking the 103rd mission of ISRO and yet another testimony to India's Space prowess
The lift-off, scheduled for 5.56 pm, was delayed by five minutes to avoid probability of collision with space debris, a normal cautionary step in a launch mission
The 44.4 metre tall 230-tonne rocket, in its core alone variant, injected the 409 kg Indo-French satellite SARAL first into orbit about 18 minutes after the lift-off, followed by six other foreign satellites in about four minutes
This is the 23rd mission for India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - a seven-storey-high, 230 tonne rocket.
The PSLV has so far successfully launched more than 50 satellites into space.
President Pranab Mukherjee watched the rocket carrying the seven satellites take off from Sriharikota launch centre in Andhra Pradesh
No comments:
Post a Comment