Chennai, Nov 26: Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) PSLV-C54 carrying an earth observation satellite and eight nano-satellites lifted off from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota near here.
The PSLV-C54 took off at 11.56 am on Saturday at the end of a 25.30-hour countdown which began at 10.26 am on Friday. This is the 56th flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle of ISRO and 24th flight of the extended PSLV-XL version.
While the primary satellite (EOS-06) will be separated in Orbit-1, two Orbit Change Thrusters (OCTs) introduced in the propulsion bay ring of the rocket will subsequently change the orbit. The passenger payloads (PPLs) will be placed in different orbits in Orbit-2.
The customer payloads are ISRO Nano Satellite-2 for Bhutan (INS-2B), Anand, four satellites of Astrocast, and two satellites of Thybolt. Scientists said the mission will be one of the longest undertaken by the ISRO as they have to engage the rocket to change orbits.
EOS-06, which is the third generation satellite in the Oceansat series, is aimed at providing continuity in services of Oceansat-2 spacecraft with enhanced payload specifications as well as application areas.
Scientists said the other objectives of the primary satellite is to ensure the data continuity of Ocean colour and wind vector data to sustain the operational applications, and to develop and improve related algorithms and data products to serve in well- established application areas and to enhance the mission utility.
The satellite will also improve applications, some additional datasets such as sea surface temperature and more number of bands in optical region for florescence and in infrared region for atmospheric corrections are accommodated.
ISRO nano satellite-2 spacecraft is configured with INS-2 bus which will have two payloads -- NanoMx and APRS-Digipeater. While NanoMx is a multispectral optical imaging payload developed by Space Applications Centre (SAC), APRS-Digipeater payload is jointly developed by DITT- Bhutan and URSC.
The Anand Nano satellite will to demonstrate the capabilities and commercial applications of miniaturized earth-observation camera for earth observation using a microsatellite in Low Earth Orbit.
Astrocast, a 3U spacecraft is a technology demonstrator satellite for the Internet of Things (IoT) as the payload. There are 4 nos. of Astrocast Satellites in this mission. These spacecraft are housed within an ISISpace QuadPack dispenser, while Thybolt is a 0.5U spacecraft bus that includes a communication payload to enable rapid technology demonstration and constellation development for multiple users.
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