100th Mission on way: Countdown ticks as ISRO set to launch 31 satellites in one go

NewsBharati    11-Jan-2018
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Sriharikota, January 11: Countdown begins as Indian Space Research Organization ISRO is set to launch its historic mission by launching 31 satellites in one go. ISRO will launch 31 satellites at 9:29 am from Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre of Andhra Pradesh. 

"The 28-hour countdown began at 5.29 a.m. in the mission control here for the rocket launch at 9.29 a.m. on Friday," said the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on its website. Yesterday the 28-hour countdown began at 5:29 am.

Following is the curtain raiser video of PSLV-C40 / Cartosat-2 Series Satellite Mission.
 

“PSLV C-40 rocket will launch the Cartosat and 31 small satellites at 9.30am on January 12,” said ISRO Public Relations Director D P Karnik. Of the 31 small satellites, 28 are from foreign countries and two from ISRO. The two ‘desi’ small satellites are microsat and nanosat, which are technology demonstrators.

Apart from India’s Cartosat-2 series satellite, the PSLV-C40 would carry two microsatellites besides 28 of different sizes and shapes belonging to various countries. The co-passenger satellites include one micro and nanosatellite each from India. Three micro and 25 nanosatellites from six countries, namely Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, UK and USA, make up the other payload.

The Cartosat is a follow-up satellite to provide high-resolution scene-specific spot imageries for civilian and military applications. It carries Panchromatic and Multi-spectral cameras operating in Time Delay Integration (TDI) mode and is capable for delivering high-resolution data.

The advanced remote sensing satellite Cartosat, also called ‘eye in the sky’ because of its surveillance capabilities, is capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery. It carries a state-of-the-art panchromatic (PAN) camera that takes black and white pictures of the earth. The swath covered by this PAN camera is 9.6 km and their spatial resolution is less than 1 metre.