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A little after 6 p.m.Feb 25, the rocket - Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle-C20 (PSLV-C20) standing
44.4 metres tall and weighing around 230 tonnes
- hurtled towards the skies ferrying the seven
satellites together weighing 668.5 kg.
President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the first
of the 10 space missions planned by the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for 2013, which
was also the country's 101th space mission.
With a rich orange flame at its tail and a plume
of white fume, the rocket ascended towards the
evening skies amidst the resounding cheers of
ISRO scientists and a media team assembled at
the launch centre.
People perched atop nearby buildings too happily
clapped as PSLV-C20 went up towards the heavens.
Space scientists at ISRO new rocket mission control
room were glued to their computer screens watching
the rocket escaping the earth's gravitational
pull.
At around 18 minutes into the flight PSLV-C20
spat out SARAL satellite. The following four minutes
saw the rocket ejecting six satellites in their
intended polar orbit.
Immediately on the successfully ejection of the
seven satellites, scientists at the mission control
centre were visibly relieved and started clapping
happily.
Mukherjee congratulated the scientists. "Delighted
to witness the remarkable launch of the PSLV.
I congratulate ISRO for successfully executing
the mission," he said.
Exuding hapiness, ISRO Chairman K.Radhakrishnan
said: "It's a successfull launch."
The successful launch of the satellites takes
ISRO's tally of launching foreign satellites to
35. ISRO started putting into space third-party
satellites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2 rocket.
Since then India has been successful in launching
medium-weight satellites for overseas agencies.
Initially ISRO started carrying third-party satellites
atop PSLv rockets as co-passengers of its own
remote sensing/earth observation satellites.
In 2007, ISRO for the first time launched an
Italian satellite - Agile - as a standalone for
a fee.
India began its space journey in 1975 with the
launch of Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and
till date, it has completed 102 space missions.
Interestingly the PSLV is carrying seven satellites
for second time after having done so in September
2009.
However, the highest number of satellites put
into orbit in one go by the PSLV rocket - 10 -
was in April 2008.
Two of the SARAL satellite's payload (ARGOS and
ALTIKA) has been supplied by the French National
Space Agency CNES while the solid state C-band
transponder is from ISRO.
The SARAL will study the sea surface heights
and the data generated will be shared by both
countries.
Indian space agency officials told IANS the data
from SARAL will be useful for operational as well
as research user communities in fields like marine
meteorology and sea state forecasting; operational
oceanography; seasonal forecasting; climate monitoring;
ocean, earth system and climate research; continental
ice studies; protection of bio-diversity; management
and protection of the marine eco-system; environmental
monitoring and improvement of maritime security.
According to ISRO, the SARAL satellite is the
first under the Indian mini-satellite Bus-series
2 configured for 400 kg satellites.
The Indian space agency states this satellite
frame is envisaged to be the workhorse for different
types of operational missions in the coming years.
Among the other six satellites that PSLV-C20
would sling into orbit are two Canadian satellites
- NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Space Surveillance
Satellite), the world's first space telescope
designed by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Sapphire
satellite built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates
(MDA); BRITE and UniBRITE (both Austrian); STRaND-1
(Britain) and AAUSAT (Denmark).
The STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research, and
Nanosatellite Demonstrator) is the world's first
'smartphone satellite' carrying Google Nexus One
phone running on the Android operating system.
The 6.5 kg satellite is a British mission jointly
developed by the University of Surrey's Surrey
Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology
Limited (SSTL).
The phone will run several applications, including
collection of data and photographing the earth
with its camera.
Once all the satellite's own operating systems
have been checked out, key system functions will
be transferred to the phone's components to take
control and operate the satellite, SSTL said on
its website.
According to CSA, NEOSSat will detect and track
asteroids and satellites circling the globe every
100 minutes and scanning space near the Sun to
pinpoint otherwise almost invisible asteroids.
The satellite will also be useful in tracking
resident space objects, including space debris.
On the other hand, Sapphire will look for resident
space objects that include functioning satellites
and space debris circling between 6,000 km and
40,000 km above the earth.
.(IANS)
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