THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: India’s space mission is all set to take a giant leap with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) planning to inject a record number of 22 satellites from different countries into the orbit in one mission.
The trusted launch vehicle PSLV C34 will be used for the launch which would take place in May this year from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
There will be just one Indian satellite, namely the Cartosat 2C and the rest of them are from the United States, Canada, Germany, Indonesia and other countries.
These included four micro satellites weighing 85 to 130 kg each and 17 nano-satellites weighing four to 30 kg. Two of the nano-satellites have been developed by the Pune Engineering College and Sathyabhama University.
Talking to newspersons here, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Director K Sivan said the ISRO had earlier sent ten satellites on a single mission. ”Now we are planning more than double. The injection of so many satellites into orbit increases the complexity of the mission many fold.”
American space agency NASA holds the record for most number of satellites launched in a single mission. NASA had sent 29 satellites to the orbit in a single launch in 2013.
Expressing hope that the launch would take place in May itself, Mr Sivan said the PSLV rocket, in its XL version, would be used for the mission.
The Indian remote sensing satellite Cartosat 2C would constitute the primary payload. The micro-satellites include the M3MSAT of Comdev, Canada, to be used for collection and study of automatic identification system signals from low earth orbit, the Indonesian satellite LAPAN A3 for earth surveillance and magnetic field monitoring, the German satellite BIROS to be used for remote sensing of high temperature events and SKYSAT Gen2-1 of Skybox, the United States for earth imaging.
The nano-satellite payload includes three quad-packs of four earth imaging technology demonstrator satellites each of Spaceflight, the United States, and a package of two Canadian satellites designed to measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.(Agencies)
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