All You Need To Know About ISRO's 100th Satellite Launch As Countdown Begins

New Delhi:  The countdown for the launch of ISRO's 100th satellite along with 30 others in a single mission, from the space port of Sriharikota, around 110 kilometres from Chennai, began today. This will be the 42nd mission of ISRO's trusted launcher PSLV, or Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The launcher for this particular mission - the PSLV-C40 - will carry the 710 kg Cartosat-2 series remote sensing satellite for earth and weather observation. It will also launch thirty other satellites having a combined weight of around 613 kg at lift-off. The nearly 45-metre tall PSLV-C40 rocket will be launched from the First Launch Pad or FLP of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The time for the lift-off has been set at 09:29 am tomorrow.

The Indian Space Research Organisation said this morning that the Mission Readiness Review committee and the Launch Authorisation Board have both cleared the 28-hour countdown which started precisely at 05:29 am IST today.
 The 'Cartosat', which gets its name by combining the words 'Cartography' and 'Satellite', is an Indian Remote Sensing Satellite or IRS. The Cartosat-2 series satellite will carry advanced Panchromatic and Multi-spectral cameras capable of imaging a swath or geographical strip of 9.6 km with a resolution of better than 1 metre. The cameras are capable of operating in Time Delay Integration mode and will deliver high resolution data.

The scene specific spot imagery sent by the Cartosat-2 series remote sensing satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and man-made features and various other Land Information System and Geographical Information System applications.
 The 30 other satellites on board comprise of one microsatellite and one nanosatellite from India, as well as 3 microsatellites and 25 nanosatellites from six other countries, namely, Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and the United States. The total weight of all the 31 satellites carried on board the PSLV-C40 is approximately 1323 kg.

The 28 international satellites scheduled to be launched tomorrow are part of commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited, a Government of India company under the Department of Space, the commercial arm of ISRO and the foreign customers.

At present, the scientists are involved in the propellant filling operation to carry out various stages of the flight, officials at ISRO said this morning. Of the total number of satellites carried by the PSLV-C40, 30 satellites will be launched into a 505-km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit or SSO. Scientists will bring down the height by twice restarting the fourth stage of the PSLV-C40 for launch of the Microsat satellite, which will be placed in a 359-km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit, officials at ISRO said.
 The complete launch of all 31 satellites is expected to happen over a period of 2 hours and 21 seconds, ISRO officials said. The Cartosat-2 series satellite launch is a follow-on mission with the primary objective of providing high resolution scene specific spot imageries.

This will be the third satellite in the Cartosat-2 series. ISRO had successfully launched a Cartosat-2 Series satellite on June 22, 2016. It is similar to the earlier Cartosat-2, 2A and 2B.

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ISRO Satellite Centre Director M Annadurai had recently said that the launch of 28 satellites from abroad and three Indian satellites during the mission would mark the roll out of the 100th satellite by the space agency. Tomorrow's launch also marks the first launch for ISRO in 2018 following the unsuccessful mission of navigation satellite IRNSS-1H last year.
 On August 31, 2017 India's mission to launch its backup navigation satellite IRNSS-1H on board PSLV-C39 failed after the heat shield did not separate in the final leg of the launch sequence and as a result, the satellite IRNSS-1H got stuck in the fourth stage of the rocket.

(With inputs from PTI)