NEW DELHI – The ISRO announced on Friday that it would launch 31satellites, including India’s Cartosat-2 series earth observation spacecraft, in a single mission on-board its Polar rocket on January 10. Themission will be the first Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) missionafter the unsuccessful launch of navigation satellite IRNSS-1H in August.
“The launch is tentatively scheduled for January 10,” a senior Indian SpaceResearch Organisation (ISRO) official told PTI.
The mission’s main payload would be India’s Cartosat-2 series earthobservation satellite.
The Mission Readiness Review committee and Launch Authorisation Board isscheduled to meet in the coming days would take the final call, he said.
PSLV-C40 will be used for the launch from the spaceport in Andhra Pradesh’sSriharikota, about 100km from Chennai.
The mission would be a combination of 28 nano satellites from foreigncountries, including Finland and the US, one micro and nano satellite fromIndia along with one Cartosat satellite, the official said.
On August 31, India’s mission to launch its backup navigation satelliteIRNSS-1H on board PSLV-C39 ended in a failure after a technical fault onthe final leg following a perfect launch.
ISRO then said the heat shield did not separate on the final leg of thelaunch sequence and, as a result, IRNSS-1H got stuck in the fourth stageof the rocket.
According to ISRO, Cartosat-2 series satellite launch is a follow-onmission with the primary objective of providing high resolution scenespecific spot imageries.
It carries Panchromatic and Multi-spectral cameras operating in Time DelayIntegration mode and is capable of delivering high resolution data.
This would be the third satellite in the Cartosat-2 series.
In February this year, PSLV-C37 launched the first Cartosat-2 seriessatellite along with 103 co-passenger satellites in a single flight.
In June, India’s workhorse launch vehicle launched the second one alongwith 30 co-passenger satellites — the 39th consecutively successfulmission of PSLV.