Sriharikota, April 28
India today created a record of sorts in space history as scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully put 10 satellites in orbit in a single mission launched from here.
ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair said, “We have created a record of sorts by launching 10 satellites together for the first time and shown the world that we can do it in a precise manner. Russia had earlier launched 13 satellites together but we do not know the results yet.
“The launch was successful and all parameters worked wonderfully well,” he added with jubilation.
Nair admitted that scientists were tense because of the unusual weather conditions over the Bay of Bengal and said, “Only at 11 pm last night did we decide to go ahead with the launch.”
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) took off from the space base here in Andhra Pradesh.
The 230-tonne PSLV-C9 carried the heaviest luggage of 824 kg - which included an Indian mini satellite and eight foreign nano satellites and the Cartosat-2A remote sensing satellite.
At the end of the 52-hour countdown, the PSLV-C9, with a lift-off mass of 230 tonne, blasted off from the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here and soared into the clear sky in a textbook launch at 9.23 am.
Fourteen minutes after the lift off, the fourth stage of the ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle, in its 13th flight, injected the 10 satellites into the 635 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).
This is also PSLV’s 12th successful flight. The 690 kg Indian remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A is capable of picking up images as small as a car on the surface of Earth.
This is the third time that the PSLV has been launched in the core alone version, without the six solid propellant first stage strap-on motors.
The challenge of this mission was that the fourth stage of the rocket fired the 10 satellites into the orbit, one after the
other in a timed sequence without any collision.
While two satellites belong to ISRO and other eight, called nano satellites, are from different countries. These are very small satellites and all of them together weigh only 50 kg.
Although the PSLV has successfully launched multiple satellites three times earlier (three satellites each on May 26, 1999 and October 22, 2001 and four satellites on January 10, 2007), this is the first time that ISRO has successfully put in orbit as many as 10 satellites using a single rocket.
According to B.N. Suresh, former director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), “It was a good experience to launch so many satellites” because it was quite an involved and complex task. The Thiruvananthapuram -based VSSC has built the PSLV-C9 which is a four-stage vehicle.
The two Indian satellites are Cartosat-2A and Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1). Cartosat-2A, which weighs 690 kg, is a remote-sensing satellite and its images will have a resolution of one metre.
The images will be used in vital defence applications as well as making maps which will provide valuable information in planning urban infrastructure, rural roads, ring roads and settlements.
The IMS-1, which weighs 83 kg, is also a remote-sensing satellite. The images sent down by its two cameras can be used to monitor features on the earth such as its vegetation and water bodies. The ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, has built the two satellites.
Six of the eight nano satellites are clustered together and are named NLS-4.
The University of Toronto, Canada, has developed the NLS-4. It comprises Cute 1.7 and SEEDS, both built in Japan while the remaining four-CAN-X2, AAUSAT-II, COMPASS-1 and Delphi-C3 -were built in Canada, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, respectively.
The two other nano satellites, NLS-5 and Rubin-8, belong to the University of Toronto and
Germany.
