ISRO’s 104 satellites

#Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) #Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle was successfully launched the 714 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite along with 103 co-passenger satellites on the morning of February 15, 2017 from #Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

This is the thirty eighth consecutively successful mission of PSLV.  The total weight of all the 104 satellites carried on-board PSLV-C37 was 1378 kg. The total number of Indian satellites launched by PSLV now stands at 46.

After separation, the two solar arrays of #Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.

The imagery from the Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

The data sets could be used for urban planning of 500 cities under the Amrut Planning Scheme.  The government initiative of 100 smart city programme in which these data sets could be used for master plan preparation and detailed geospatial data preparation for rural roads and infrastructure development.

Of the 103 co-passenger satellites carried by PSLV-C37, two – ISRO Nano Satellite-1 (INS-1) weighing 8.4 kg and INS-2 weighing 9.7 kg – are technology demonstration satellites from India.

The remaining 101 co-passenger satellites carried were international customer satellites from USA (96), The Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1), Israel (1), Kazakhstan (1) and UAE (1).

This mission involved many technical challenges like realising the launch of a large number of satellites during a single mission within the time frame sought by the customers from abroad.  Besides, ensuring adequate separation between all the 104 satellites during their orbital injection as well as during their subsequent orbital life was yet another challenge associated with this complex mission.  fii-news.com