BackPSLV-C20 successfully launches 7 satellites
Indo-French oceanographic study satellite ‘SARAL’, six foreign mini and micro satellites placed in the orbit
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Sriharikota: Indo-French oceanographic study satellite ‘SARAL’ and six foreign mini and micro satellites were successfully launched today by ISRO’s PSLV-C20 rocket from this spaceport.
Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at around 6.00pm at the end of the 59-hour countdown and placed in the orbit the satellites about 22 minutes later.
President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch from the mission control centre here, about 110 km from Chennai.
The lift-off was rescheduled to 6.01pm, a five-minute delay, to avoid the probability of collision with space debris, a normal precautionary step in a launch mission, ISRO sources said.
The 410-kg SARAL with payloads—Argos and Altika—from French space agency CNES is meant for study of ocean parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions.
Besides SARAL, two micro-satellites UniBRITE and BRITE from Austria, AAUSAT3 from Denmark, STRaND from the United Kingdom, one micro-satellite (NEOSSat) and one mini-satellite (SAPPHIRE) from Canada were launched by PSLV, which yet again proved its versatality recording its twenty second successful flight in a row in its 23 missions of which the first one had failed.
SARAL was injected first into the space about 18 minutes after the lift-off followed by other satellites in the space of about four minutes.
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