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In its thirteenth flight conducted from Satish Dhawan Space
Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, today (April 28, 2008),
ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C9, successfully
launched the 690 kg Indian remote sensing satellite
CARTOSAT-2A, the 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) and
eight nanosatellites for international customers into a 637
km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). PSLV-C9 in its ‘core
alone’ configuration launched ten satellites with a total
weight of about 820 kg.
After the final count
down, PSLV-C9 lifted off from the second launch pad at SDSC
SHAR, at 09:24 Hrs IST with the ignition of the core first
stage. The
 important
flight events included the separation of the first stage,
ignition of the second stage, separation of the heatshield
at about 125 km altitude after the vehicle had cleared the
dense atmosphere, second stage separation, third stage
ignition, third stage separation, fourth stage ignition and
fourth stage cut-off.
The 690 kg main payload,
CARTOSAT-2A, was the first satellite to be injected into
orbit at 885 seconds after lift-off at an altitude of 637
km. About 45 seconds later, Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1)
was separated after which all the nano satellites were
separated in sequence. The initial signals indicate normal
health of the satellites.
CARTOSAT-2A is a
state-of-the art remote sensing satellite with a spatial
resolution of about one metre and swath of 9.6 km. The
satellite carries a panchromatic camera (PAN) capable of
taking black-and-white pictures in the visible region of
electromagnetic spectrum. The highly agile CARTOSAT-2A is
steerable along as well as across the direction of its
movement to facilitate
imaging of any area more frequently.
Soon after separation
from PSLV fourth stage, the two solar panels of CARTOSAT-2A
were automatically deployed. The satellite’s health is
continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at
Bangalore with the help of ISTRAC network of stations at
Bangalore, Lucknow, Mauritius, Bearslake in Russia, Biak in
Indonesia and Svalbard in Norway.
High-resolution data
from CARTOSAT-2A will be invaluable in urban and rural
development applications calling for large scale mapping.
Indian Mini Satellite
(IMS-1), flown as an auxiliary payload on board PSLV-C9, is
developed by ISRO for remote sensing applications. Weighing
83 Kg at lift-off, IMS-1 incorporates many new technologies
and has miniaturised subsystems. IMS-1 carries two remote
sensing payloads - A Multi-spectral camera (Mx Payload) and
a Hyper-spectral camera (HySI Payload), operating in the
visible and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic
spectrum. The spatial resolution of Mx camera is 37 metre
with a swath of 151 km while that of HySI is about 506 metre
with a swath of about 130 km. The data from this mission
will be made available to interested space agencies and
student community from developing countries to provide
necessary impetus to capacity building in using satellite
data. The versatile IMS-1 has been specifically developed to
carry different payloads in future without significant
changes in it and has a design life time of two years.
Eight Nanosatellites
from abroad are carried as auxiliary payloads besides IMS-1
as well as CARTOSAT-2A. The total weight of these
Nanosatellite payloads is about 50 Kg. Six of the eight
Nanosatellites are clustered together with the collective
name NLS-4. The other two nanosatellites are NLS-5 AND
RUBIN-8. NLS-4, developed by University of Toronto, Canada
consists of six nano-satellites developed by various
universities. Two of them - CUTE 1.7 and SEEDS - are built
in Japan, while the other four - CAN-X2, AAUSAT-II,
COMPASS-1 and DELPHI-C3 are built in Canada, Denmark,
Germany and the Netherlands respectively. NLS-5 is also
built by University of Toronto and RUBIN-8 is built by
Cosmos International, Germany. The eight nanosatellite
payloads of PSLV-C9 are built to develop nano technologies
for use in satellites as well as for the development of
technologies for satellite applications.
In its twelve
consecutively successful flights so far, PSLV has repeatedly
proved itself as a reliable and versatile workhorse launch
vehicle. It has demonstrated multiple satellite launch
capability having launched a total of sixteen satellites for
international customers besides thirteen Indian payloads
which are for remote sensing, amateur radio communications
and Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1). PSLV was used
to launch ISRO’s exclusive meteorological satellite,
KALPANA-1, into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) in
September 2002 and thus proved its versatility. The same
vehicle will be used to launch Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft,
India’s first mission to Moon during this year.
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