ISRO to launch PSLV’s longest flight SCATSAT-1 on 26 September for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services.
ISRO is all set to launch its weather satellite SCATSAT-1 and seven other satellites, five foreign and two domestic on the morning of September 26. The satellites will launch with its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, said an official of Indian space agency. According to ISRO, SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for Oceansat-2 scatterometer to provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users. The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer similar to the one flown onboard Oceansat-2. The mission life of the satellite is 5 years. The five foreign satellites are from Algeria, Canada and US and the two from Indian universities/academic institute satellites will be placed into a 670 km polar orbit.
According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) the PSLV rocket with eight satellites is expected to blast off at 9.12 a.m. on Monday from its rocket port in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The rocket’s main cargo will be the 377 kg SCATSAT-1 for ocean and weather related studies which will be placed into a 720 km polar sun synchronous orbit, the official, who didn’t want to be identified told IANS. This is the first mission of PSLV in which it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits. The multiple burn technology was first tested by ISRO while flying its PSLV rocket on December 16, 2015.
Launching of multiple satellites with a single rocket is nothing new for ISRO and it has been doing that for several years. The challenge, however, is to launch several satellites at different orbits with one rocket, but the ISRO already did so successfully when the PSLV ejected out six Singaporean satellites on December 16, 2015.
Source: bgr.in
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