ISRO Launches 7 Satellites in 20 Minutes

ISRO Launches 7 Satellites in 20 Minutes

PTI Photo
Oceansat-2, the country's 16th remote sensing satellite, will identify potential fishing zones, sea state forecasting and coastal zone studies, besides providing inputs on weather forecasting and climate studies.
ISRO Launches 7 Satellites in 20 Minutes











India today successfully put into orbit Oceansat-2 and six nano European satellites in 20 minutes in the 15th consecutive flawless launch for homegrown rocket PSLV putting behind the premature end of its maiden unmanned moon mission.

The textbook launch has also given further fillip to the launch capabilities of India which has emerged as a major player in the multi-billion dollar space market.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's PSLV-C14 put its 960 kg Ocean Monitoring Satellite(Oceansat-2)--the country's 16th remote sensing satellite--into intended orbit of about 720 kms above the earth 1,200 seconds after it majestically blasted off into azure sky from the coastal Satish Dhawan Space Centre here in Andhra Pradesh,about 100 km from Chennai.

In tandem, the the 44.4 metre tall four-stage ISRO's workhorse PSLV, in its 16th flight, also hurled into space a set of six foreign nano satellites that rode piggyback on Oceansat-2.

"We had an excellent launch, a precise launch... It has once again proved our capability. It is an example of fine teamwork and the maturity of PSLV launch vehicle has been proved," a beaming ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair announced to cheering space scientists after the launch watched by Vice-President Hamid Ansari.

Ansari said that "our space scientists have done the nation proud" by this launch.

"I congratulate our space scientists and all those associated with this successful launch," he said in a message.

Oceansat-2 will identify potential fishing zones, sea state forecasting and coastal zone studies, besides providing inputs on weather forecasting and climate studies.

The successful launch has come as a morale booster to ISRO after the agency suffered a setback last month from the abrupt termination of Chandrayaan-I mission. Nair, however, has maintained that the moon mission had completed 95 per cent of its objective.

Congratulating the ISRO team, President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Oceansat-2 would herald a new beginning in understanding of the oceans.

In their messages, Patil said it was a proud moment for the whole country, while Singh said he was delighted to learn that the PSLV-C14 has successfully launched Oceansat-2 and six nano satellites.

"PSLV has once again demonstrated its versatility and reliability through this 15th successful launch in a row," the PM said, adding Oceansat-2 will "herald a new beginning in our understanding of the oceans".

Besides two German Rubin nano satellites, other Oceansat-2 co-passengers are four cubesats: Beesat, built by Technical University Berlin, UWE-2 (University of Wuerzburg Germany), ITU-pSat(Istanbul Technical University Turkey) and SwissCube-1 (Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland).

An in-orbit replacement to Oceansat-1, which was used to study physical and biological aspects of oceanography, Oceansat-2 will have a mission life of five years. Oceansat-1 has completed 10 years of space odyssey.

The nano satellites, in the two-eight kg range, are educational spacecraft from European Universities intended to test new technologies.

Oceansat-2 was injected into space first and the remaining were fired into the orbit one after another.

Today's PSLV was a core alone version without six strap on motors that surround the first stage in the standard PSLV format.

PSLV's fourth stage fired five satellites into orbit and the two Rubin satellites will remain permanently attached to the vehicle's fourth stage, doing their work, ISRO officials said.

Oceansat 2 was placed in polar sunsynchronous orbit of 720 km above earth, as in the case of its predecessor.

The eight band Ocean Colour Monitor carried by Oceansat-2 images a swath (strip of land or ocean) of 1,420 km with a resolution of 360 metres and works in the visible and Near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Scatterometer covers a swath of 1,400 km and operates continuously.

Chronology

Following is the chronology of PSLV launches:

PSLV-C14 launched Oceansat-2 and 6 Nano satellites on September 23, 2009 (Successful)

PSLV-C12 launched RISAT-2 and ANUSAT on April 20, 2009 (Successful)

PSLV-C11 launched CHANDRAYAAN-I, on October 22, 2008 (Successful)

PSLV-C9 launched CARTOSAT-2A, IMS-1 and eight nano satellites on April 28, 2008 (Successful)

PSLV-C10 launched TECSAR on January 23, 2008 (Successful)

PSLV-C8 launched AGILE on April 23, 2007 (Successful)

PSLV-C7 launched CARTOSAT-2, SRE-1, LAPAN-TUBSAT and PEHUENSAT-1 on January 10, 2007 (Successful)

PSLV-C6 launched CARTOSAT-1 and HAMSAT on May 5, 2005 (Successful).

PSLV-C5 launched RESOURCESAT-1(IRS-P6) on October 17, 2003 (Successful)

PSLV-C4 launched KALPANA-1(METSAT) on September 12, 2002 (Successful)

PSLV-C3 launched TES on October 22, 2001 (Successful)

PSLV-C2 launched OCEANSAT(IRS-P4), KITSAT-3 and LR-TUBSAT on May 26, 1999 (Successful)

PSLV-C1 launched IRS-1D on September 29, 1997 (Successful)

PSLV-D3 launched IRS-P3 on March 21, 1996 (Successful)

PSLV-D2 launched IRS-P2 on October 15, 1994 (Successful)

PSLV-D1 launched IRS-1E on September 20, 1993 (Unsuccessful).

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