The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved a great Milestone on Monday by putting Cartosat-2A, the remote sensing satellite in orbit with the best-ever Indian imagery resolution offer of 0.8 metre.
The PSLV-C9 launcher delivered nine other satellites — the experimental Indian Mini Satellite IMS-1 and eight tiny commercial satellites — into a 637-km along with Cartosat-2A in orbit.
The record multiple launch of 10 satellites in one shot showcased ISRO’s space transportation ability in polar, 1,000-km distances aboard the PSLV launcher.
The ISRO Chairman, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, was reported as saying soon after the launch,
“The mission was perfect and for the first time, 10 satellites were launched within one mission.”
Being the 12th consecutive and successive PSLV flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota,the same is being used to lift Chandrayaan-I l mission.
Cartosat-2A has life expectancy of five years & will support Cartosat-2 that is already transmitting 1-m imageries from January 2007. The cost oh this 690-kg satellite is said to be Rs 240 crore.
“ Cartosat-2A is steerable along as well as across the direction of its movement. It will transmitt invaluable High-resolution data for urban and rural development applications.
The eight nanosats were built by universities in Canada, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Called NLS-4 (a cluster of six), NLS-5 and RUBIN-8, they together weigh 50 kg. ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation charged $600,000 (about Rs 2.4 crore) for their launch.
IMS-1 or the Indian Mini Satellite – earlier called the Third World Satellite (TWSAT) — incorporates many new technologies and has miniaturised sub-systems. Apart from the now common multi-spectral camera (Mx), it is testing a hyper-spectral camera (HySI) operating in the visible and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
