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Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh): An Indian rocket carrying seven satellites - the
Indo-French satellite SARAL, world's first smart phone-operated
nano satellite, a space telescope satellite and four other foreign
satellites - Monday blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space
Centre here, around 80 km north of Chennai.
A little after 6 p.m., the rocket - Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle-C20 (PSLV-C20) - standing 44.4 metres tall and weighing
around 230 tonnes hurtled towards the skies ferrying seven
satellites to sling into orbit.
President Pranab Mukherjee and scientists at Indian Space Research
Organisation's (ISRO) rocket mission control room intently watched
the rocket's progress towards the heavens, escaping the earth's
gravitational pull with a one way ticket.
ISRO officials are hoping that the agency's 101th space mission
and also the first of the 10 planned for 2013 will turn out to be
a grand success.
The PSLV-C20 rocket is expected to deliver its main luggage - the
407-kg SARAL (Satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA) and six other
foreign satellites 794 km above the earth.
The entire flight sequence - lift-off to the ejection of the
seventh satellite - will take around 22 minutes.
The successful launch of the satellites will take ISRO's tally of
launching foreign satellites to 35. ISRO started putting into
space third-party satellites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2
rocket.
Since then India has been successful in launching medium-weight
satellites for overseas agencies. Initially ISRO started carrying
third-party satellites atop PSLv rockets as co-passengers of its
own remote sensing/earth observation satellites.
In 2007, ISRO for the first time launched an Italian satellite -
Agile - as a standalone for a fee.
India began its space journey in 1975 with the launch of
Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and till date, it has completed
100 space missions.
Interestingly the PSLV is carrying seven satellites for second
time after having done so in September 2009.
However, the highest number of satellites put into orbit in one go
by the PSLV rocket - 10 - was in April 2008.
Two of the SARAL satellite's payload (ARGOS and ALTIKA) has been
supplied by the French National Space Agency CNES while the solid
state C-band transponder is from ISRO.
The SARAL will study the sea surface heights and the data
generated will be shared by both countries.
Indian space agency officials told IANS the data from SARAL will
be useful for operational as well as research user communities in
fields like marine meteorology and sea state forecasting;
operational oceanography; seasonal forecasting; climate
monitoring; ocean, earth system and climate research; continental
ice studies; protection of bio-diversity; management and
protection of the marine eco-system; environmental monitoring and
improvement of maritime security.
According to ISRO, the SARAL satellite is the first under the
Indian mini-satellite Bus-series 2 configured for 400 kg
satellites.
The Indian space agency states this satellite frame is envisaged
to be the workhorse for different types of operational missions in
the coming years.
Among the other six satellites that PSLV-C20 would sling into
orbit are two Canadian satellites - NEOSSat (Near Earth Object
Space Surveillance Satellite), the world's first space telescope
designed by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Sapphire satellite
built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA); BRITE and
UniBRITE (both Austrian); STRaND-1 (Britain) and AAUSAT (Denmark).
Curiously the STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research, and
Nanosatellite Demonstrator) is the world's first 'smart phone
satellite' carrying Google Nexus One phone running on the Android
operating system.
The 6.5 kg satellite is a British mission jointly developed by the
University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey
Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
The phone will run several applications, including collection of
data and photographing the earth with its camera.
Once all the satellite's own operating systems have been checked
out, key system functions will be transferred to the phone's
components to take control and operate the satellite, SSTL said on
its website.
According to CSA, NEOSSat will detect and track asteroids and
satellites circling the globe every 100 minutes and scanning space
near the Sun to pinpoint otherwise almost invisible asteroids.
The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space
objects, including space debris.
On the other hand, Sapphire will look for resident space objects
that include functioning satellites and space debris circling
between 6,000 km and 40,000 km above the earth.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
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