On Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organization successfully launched nine satellites into orbit from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
India Launches Nine Satellites
After deployment, the satellite will be placed into a sun-synchronous orbit. As a result of their synchronization, they always hold the same fixed position concerning the Sun. On Friday, the spacecraft received approval for the Saturday launch, which will be the 56th PSLV flight from India.
The vehicle will launch with a liftoff mass of 321 tons. The spacecraft is carrying nine satellites, including one national satellite from the Oceansat family, one diplomatic satellite jointly developed with Bhutan, and seven customer satellites.
Bhutan and India both worked with private companies to develop the eight nanosatellites. The Earth Observation Satellite-06, the third-generation Oceansat satellite, is designed to offer improved payload specifications and application areas for Oceansat-2 spacecraft continuity services.
Oceansat-3, also known as the Earth Observation Satellite-6, was launched by a 44.4-meter rocket with a lift-off mass of 321 tonnes. On the 24th PSLV-XL flight, the primary satellite in Orbit-1 will be separated, and two Orbit Change Thrusters (OCTs) that were added to the PSLV-C54 Vehicle’s Propulsion Bay Ring will be used to change the orbit.
About the PSLV-C54 Mission
The India-Bhutan satellite is an initiative between India and Bhutan that carries two payloads aboard the INS-2B satellite for Bhutan. A multispectral optical imaging payload called NanoMx that was created by the Space Applications Centre (SAC) and the APRS-Digipeater, a project of the URSC and DITT-Bhutan, was successfully launched.
Sri S. Somanath, Secretary of the Department of Space and Chairman of ISRO, described the launch as textbook-perfect and offered his congratulations to the ISRO team, NSIL, the industry, and the client for the outstanding accomplishment.
Later, in a speech to the nation, External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishanker praised the scientists from Bhutan and ISRO for their work on this mission, which will mark the expansion of their countries’ space cooperation under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.
During the visit of the Hon. Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi in 2019, he also recalled the inauguration of the ground earth station created by ISRO for the south Asian satellite, shared by both countries. Speaking to the crowd, the Royal Government of Bhutan’s Minister of Information and Communications expressed his complete satisfaction with the launch and the work put forth by the ISRO and Bhutan teams.
At the launch, every user from Dhruva Aerospace and PixxelIndia was there. Indian companies like Ananth Technologies, Newtech, Centum, Cosmos, DataPatterns, HAL, and PARAS Defence Limited provided some of the satellite’s important subsystems. 10342 spectators saw the live launch from the open-view gallery at SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.
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