PSLV C-35 with eight satellites lifts off from Sriharikota Monday Sep 26,2016

PSLV C-35, carrying India’s SCATSAT-1 meant for ocean and weather studies and seven other satellites, including from the US and Canada, today lifted off from the spaceport Sriharikota

Besides SCATSAT-1, the 44.4-metre tall ISRO’s workhorse PSLV rocket is carrying two Indian university satellites, three from Algeria and one each from the US and Canada. 

The foreign satellites onboard the PSLV are ALSAT-1B, ALSAT-2B and ALSAT-1N (all from Algeria) and Pathfinder-1 and NLS-19, from USA and Canada, respectively. 

The total weight of all the eight satellites onboard PSLV C35 is about 675 kg, ISRO said. SCATSAT-1 weighs 371 kg.

For the first time in its mission, the PSLV will launch its payloads in two different orbits. There will be two fourth stage engine restarts for this purpose 

PSLV C-35 took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, about 110 km from Chennai at 9.12 am. 

SCATSAT-1, the primary satellite, is meant for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking. 

While SCATSAT-1 will be released first into a 730 km Polar Sunsynchronous Orbit (SSO) after about 17 minutes, the rest will be injected into a lower orbit of 689 km after around two hours.

Note

Key points you should know about know about ISRO’s longest-ever flight:

• The PSLV-C35 rocket, in its 37th mission, will put its main cargo, Indian SCATSAT-1 weighing about 371 kg, into a 730 km polar sun synchronous orbit, 17 minutes into the flight.
• The remaining seven satellites – two other Indian satellites and five foreign - will be placed in a 689 km polar orbit nearly two hours later.
• This will be ISRO's longest PSLV satellite launch mission spread over two hours and fifteen minutes.
• SCATSAT-1 (Scatterometer Satellite-1) is a miniature satellite developed by ISRO to provide weather forecasting, cyclone prediction, and tracking services to India. The mission life of the satellite is 5 years.
• Besides SCATSAT-1, the two other Indian satellites are: Pratham (10kg), which will study the total electron count in space, built by Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) and Pisat (5.25 kg) from PES University, Bengaluru and its consortium. PISAT carries an imaging camera as payload to capture imagery of Earth’s surface.
• The five foreign satellites are: three from Algeria (Alsat-1B 103kg, Alsat-2B 117kg, Alsat-1N 7kg), and one each from Canada (NLS-19, 8kg) and US (Pathfinder-44kg).
• This will be the first time that ISRO will be using the multiple burn technology for launching satellites. Multiple burn technology is the switching off and switching on of a rocket's engine in space.
• ISRO said this will be the fifteenth flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration with the use of solid strap-on motors.
• This is also will be the second time that ISRO puts many satellites into different orbits during a single launch mission.
• Till date, the PSLV has launched 39 remote-sensing satellites of ISRO, including the Chandrayaan-1 of 2008 and the Mars mission of 2013-14.