BANGALORE, Feb 24:
The stage is set for the launch of Indian Space Research Organisation’s workhorse PSLV which will hurl into space Indo-French satellite SARAL and six other mini and micro satellites from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh tomorrow.
ISRO sources said countdown was proceeding very well and the ‘core alone’ space vehicle will blast-off precisely at 5.56 pm IST tomorrow.
‘We are all geared up. A full test of the rocket and the satellite systems have been completed. The total weight of all seven satellites is 700 kilograms,’ an ISRO official at Sriharikota said.
SARAL is aimed at oceanography studies, and six foreign mini and micro satellites onboard ISRO’s workhorse rocket PSLV.
President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to witness the event.
The 59-hour countdown for the launch, which commenced at 6.56 a.M. Yesterday, was progressing normally.
This is the 23rd mission of PSLV, which has a fine record of 21 consecutive successful flights. This is the ninth time ISRO is using the ‘core alone’ variant of the rocket which will not have strap-on motors.
PSLV-C20 would be the 23rd PSLV Mission of ISRO and the ninth ‘Core-Alone’ (without solid strap-on motors) variant.
SARAL (Satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA) is an ISRO-CNES (France) joint Venture for oceanography studies.
The other six auxiliary payloads are from Canada (2), Austria (2), Denmark (1) and UK (1).
The 44.4 metres tall rocket will have a lift off mass of 229.7 tonnes. Besides SARAL, it would put into orbit two micro-satellites UniBRITE and BRITE from Austria and AAUSAT3 from Denmark and STRaND from United Kingdom as also one micro-satellite (NEOSSat) and one mini-satellite (SAPPHIRE) from Canada.
The PSLV will place the the seven satellite at about 800 km sun synchronous orbit at around 1800 hrs on February 25, the official said.
Having successfully completed its 100th mission last year, this would be the first mission for the Indian Space Agency in the new year-2013.
Incidentally, ISRO had initially planned to launch SARAL on 12 December last year but postponed it to carry out additional tests.
The ISRO-built SARAL is a 410-kg satellite with payloads Argos and Altika from French space agency CNES for study of ocean parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions. ISRO has provided the satellite bus (satellite frame) and built the satellite.
SARAL will provide data products to operational and research user communities, in support of marine meteorology and sea state forecasting; operational oceanography; seasonal forecasting; climate monitoring; ocean, earth system and climate research, the officials said.
Altimeter (Altika) would help study the sea surface heights while Argos payload is a satellite-based data collection platform.
The launch of the other satellites would be on commercial basis that fetches revenue for ISRO, which was the most sought after agency due to the success of PSLV and also offers low cost launches. (UNI)
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