ISRO prepares to launch 7 Singaporean satellites with PSLV rocket; Many more flights to come this year

The countdown for the July 30 morning launch of an Indian rocket carrying seven Singaporean satellites began at Sriharikota rocket port this morning, said officials.  This mission will be the third commercial mission for ISRO in 2023. The New Space India Ltd (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Department of Space, has procured the PSLV-C56 rocket to launch the satellites from Singapore.

Time, date and load carried in the satellite launch

“The countdown began at 5.01 a.m.,” a senior official of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told the agency.

ISRO will be launching seven Singaporean satellites on July 30 at 6.30 a.m. using its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The rocket will blast off from the first launch pad.

The PSLV rocket with the code PSLV-C56 will carry the Singaporean DS-SAR satellite weighing about 360 kg as the main passenger.

The other six co-passengers are small satellites -- VELOX-AM, ARCADE,SCOOB-II from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; NuLIoNbelonging to NuSpace Pte Ltd, Singapore, Galassia-2 from NationalUniversity of Singapore and ORB-12 STRIDER from Aliena Pte. Ltd., Singapore.

ISRO sky-rocketing in commercial launch service market

Looking back at this year, ISRO had two successful commercial launches. The first one was the launch of 36 satellites belonging to the UK-based OneWeb with the LVM3 rocket in Mar. This cost the UK company nearly $60m (₹493.5 cr) per launch.The second one was the orbiting of two satellites from Singapore TeLEOS-2 and Lumilite-4 satellite in Apr with PSLV rocket.

The DS-SAR satellite is developed under a partnership between DSTA (representing the government of Singapore) and ST Engineering. Once deployed and operational, it will be used to support the satellite imagery requirements of various agencies within the government of Singapore.

The DS-SAR will provide all-weather day and night coverage, which will be capable of imaging at one metre resolution at full polarimetry.

If the mission turns out to be successful, ISRO would have launched 431 foreign satellites from 36 countries since 1999.

Second ISRO mission in two weeks; more space programs to come

Recently on July 14, ISRO rocket LVM3 had put the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbit. The New Space India Ltd (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Department of Space, has procured the PSLV-C56 rocket to launch the satellites from Singapore.

Following this mission will be another interplanetary mission. The ISRO will be sending up its Aditya L1, a coronagraphy satellite, on a PSLV rocket to study the solar atmosphere towards the end of August. According to ISRO, the spacecraft will be placed into a halo orbit around the first Lagrange point, L1, of the Sun-Earth system.

The Aditya L1 mission is slated to happen a couple of days after ISRO attempts to land on the lunar soil its lander that is being carried by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.

After that will be the orbiting of Anwesha satellite and XPoSAT- a X-RayPolarimeter Satellite with ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).

(Source: IANS)

Edited for style

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