ISRO successfully orbits seven Singapore satellites
With this latest rocketing success, the ISRO has orbited 431 foreign satellites from 36 countries since 1999
image for illustrative purpose
Sriharikota India on Sunday morning successfully placed into orbit seven satellites from Singapore - the radar imaging satellite DS-SAR and six others - in a copy book style. The Indian rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Core Alone variant did the honours this time.
With this latest rocketing success, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has orbited 431 foreign satellites from 36 countries since 1999. After the launch and orbit placing, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S.Somanath said: "The seven satellites have been placed in a perfect orbit. Further exciting action with regard to the final stage of the rocket will soon happen, that is, bringing it down to 300 km to address the space debris issue. The process would take about 1.30 hours. There will be another rocket mission in August or early September."
The 44.4 metre tall PSLV Core Alone variant rocket - coded named PSLV-C56 - with a lift off mass of 228.6 ton, blasted off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) here at 6.30 a.m. slowly rose up towards the skies.
The rocket carried the 352 kg synthetic aperture radar satellite DS-SAR as the primary passenger and six other small satellites as piggybacks blasted off from the first launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) here at 6.30 a.m.
The other six satellites are – 23 kg VELOX-AM, ARCADE (24 kg), SCOOB-II-4kg from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; the 3 kg NuLIoN belonging to NuSpace Pte Ltd, Singapore, the 3.5 kg Galassia-2 from National University of Singapore and the 13 kg ORB-12 STRIDER from Aliena Pte. Ltd., Singapore. Cumulatively, the seven satellites weighed 422.5 kg.
The rocketing on Sunday was made possible by NewSpace India Ltd - the commercial arm of India’s Department of Space - by contracting primarily with ST-Engineering to orbit the DS-SAR satellite. One of the notable features of the mission is ISRO deorbiting or bringing down the rocket’s fourth stage to low earth orbit (LEO) with the remaining fuel in order to cut short its orbital life.
The PSLV rocket is powered by solid (first and third stages) and liquid (second and fourth stages) fuels alternatively.
