)
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket PSLV-C28 carrying five British satellites was launched successfully from the space station here on Friday at 9:58 pm. It took only 19 minutes from the time the rocket was blasted off to place the satellites into the orbit.
Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar termed it “an extremely successful mission”. This was the maiden mission under the new team headed by him. "All the five satellites were placed successfully,” he said.
Isro had only a 15-minute window — which means it could have postponed the launch only by 15 minutes on any technical or other difficulties from the actual schedule time — to launch the rocket. But the launch was done on time. Climatic conditions were also favourable.
This is the 29th launch successfully carried out by the PSLV, which is now one of the most reliable rockets in the world. It has been in the service for the past 20 years and has launched 40 satellites for 19 countries. PSLV was also used for some of the important Indian missions including Chandrayaan, Mars Orbiter Mission etc.
The rocket, which is 44.4-metre high and weighs around 320 tonnes, carried five British satellites, cumulatively weighing around 1,440 kg.
This is the heaviest commercial mission for the PSLV rocket till date, though its total carrying capacity for such a mission is around 1,750 kg. This is also the first commercial mission for Isro in 2015.
France's SPOT 7 satellite weighing 714 kg was the heaviest single foreign satellite carried by a PSLV rocket till now. It was launched on June 30, 2014.
Of the five British satellites on board, three are identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites weighing 447 kg each. The other two satellites are CBNT-1 weighing 91 kg, which is an optical earth observation technology demonstration microsatellite, and De-OrbitSail weighing 7 kg. After a 17-minute flight, the rocket ejected the DMC3 satellites one after another and they were followed by De-OrbitSail and CNBT-1 satellites. They were built by Surrey Satellite Technology. The De-OrbitSail is built by Surrey Space Centre.
According to Isro, the DMC3 constellation, comprising three advanced mini-satellites — DMC3-1, DMC3-2 and DMC3-3 — are designed to address the need for simultaneous high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution optical earth observation.
Launched into a single low earth orbit plane and phased with a separation of 120° between them, these satellites can image any target on the earth’s surface every day. Major application areas include surveying the resources on earth and its environment, managing urban infrastructure and monitoring disasters.
Isro officials earlier said that accommodating the three DMC3 satellites, with about three meters height each, within the existing payload of the PSLV was a major challenge. A circular L-adaptor and a triangular Multiple Satellite Adapter-Version 2 (MSA-V2) were designed and realised by Isro for this specific purpose.
Meanwhile Isro is gearing up for GSAT6 communication satellite, which will be carried by Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
