ISRO successfully launches earth monitoring satellite HysIS

The primary mission of the Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS), whose mission life is five years

Sriharikota (AP): Adding another feather to its cap, ISRO's workhorse rocket PSLV-C43 Thursday successfully injected into orbit India's earth observation satellite HysIS. The 30 other co-passenger international satellites including those from the United States of America and Australia among others, will soon be placed into orbit.

The rocket lifted off majestically into cloudy skies in a burst of orange flames at 9.57 am from the first launch pad at this spaceport at the end of the 28-hour countdown. The HysIS was placed in orbit 17 minutes and 27 seconds after lift-off.

"#PSLVC43 successfully lifts off with 31 satellites, including #HysIS, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota", ISRO announced on its Twitter handler Thursday morning.

"#PSLVC43 successfully injects Indian satellite #HysIS, into sun-synchronous polar orbit", ISRO wrote on Twitter minutes later.

The primary mission of the Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS), whose mission life is five years, is to study the earth's surface in visible near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

"HysIS is an earth observation satellite developed by ISRO. It is the primary satellite of the PSLV-C43 mission. The satellite will be placed in 636 km polar sun synchronous orbit (SSO) with an inclination of 97.957 deg. The mission life of the satellite is 5 years," ISRO said.

The co-passenger satellites have been contracted for launch through ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited. PSLV-C43, is the 'Core Alone' version of PSLV. It is the lightest version of the launch vehicle.

This is ISRO's second launch in the month. The space agency had launched its latest communication satellite GSAT-29 on board GSLV MkIII-D2 on November 14. Source: ummid.com

Read More........→July 21, 2020

India launches high-power communication satellite GSAT-30

India today successfully launched its latest and most powerful communication satellite GSAT-30 from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours of the day.

The launch was carried out using European Space Agency’s launch vehicle Ariane. The Ariane 5 VA-251 lifted off from the Kourou launch base in French Guiana at 2:35 am IST carrying India’s GSAT-30 and EUTELSAT KONNECT for Eutelsat, as scheduled.

After a flight lasting 38 minutes 25 seconds, GSAT-30 separated from the Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, Isro stated in a release. 

With a lift-off mass of 3,357 kg, GSAT-30 will provide continuity to operational services on some of the in-orbit satellites. GSAT-30 derives its heritage from Isro’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series and will replace INSAT-4A in orbit.

"A strong start to 2020 as Ariane 5 successfully deploys its two satellite passengers - EUTELSAT KONNECT and GSAT-30 - into geostationary transfer orbit! I appreciate the trust from the two customers on this mission: Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel tweeted confirming the successful launch.

Isro's UR Rao Satellite Centre Director P Kunhikrishnan, who was present in Kourou, congratulated the Isro community and Arianespace team on the successful launch.

Calling it an "excellent start" to 2020 for Isro with the launch, he said, "The mission team at the master control facility have already acquired the satellite and they will immediately complete the post launch operations...."

The 3,357-kg satellite is configured on Isro's enhanced I-3K Bus structure to provide communication services from Geostationary orbit in C and Ku bands. The communication payload of GSAT-30 is specifically designed and optimised to maximise the number of transponders on the spacecraft bus, Isro stated.

“GSAT-30 has a unique configuration of providing flexible frequency segments and flexible coverage. The satellite will provide communication services to Indian mainland and islands through Ku-band and wide coverage covering Gulf countries, a large number of Asian countries and Australia through C-band” Isro chairman K Sivan said.

“GSAT-30 will provide DTH television services, connectivity to VSATs for ATM, stock exchange, television uplinking and teleport services, Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) and e-governance applications. The satellite will also be used for bulk data transfer for a host of emerging telecommunication applications,” Sivan added.

Isro’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka took over the command and control of GSAT-30 immediately after its separation from the launch vehicle. Preliminary health checks of the satellite revealed its normal health.

In the days ahead, Isro will carry our orbit-raising manoeuvres to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) by using its on-board propulsion system.

During the final stages of its orbit raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be deployed. Following this, the satellite will be put in its final orbital configuration. The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.

Source: https://www.domain-b.com/

Read More........→July 16, 2020

India successfully places a fifth navigational satellite in space

India came two steps closer to placing its own Global Positioning System (GPS) with the successful launch today of the fifth of the seven navigational satellites planned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Isro's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C31, successfully launched the 1,425 kg IRNSS-1E, the fifth satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) today morning from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, at Sriharikota. Isro will launch the remaining two satellites of this constellation, namely, IRNSS-1F and IG, in the coming months, thereby completing the entire IRNSS constellation. Isro will use its tested workhorse PSLV for the remaining two missions as well. This is the thirty-second consecutively successful mission of PSLV and the eleventh in its 'XL' configuration, Isro stated in a release. After the PSLV-C31 lift-off at 0931 hrs (9:31 am) IST from the second launch pad with the ignition of the first stage, it perfectly completed strap-on ignitions and separations as planned. After a flight of about 18 minutes 43 seconds, IRNSS-1E Satellite was injected to an elliptical orbit of 282.4 km X 20,655.3 km inclined at an angle of 19.21 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage. After injection, the solar panels of IRNSS-1E were deployed automatically. ISRO's Master Control Facility (at Hassan,Karnataka) took over control of the satellite. In the coming days, Isro will conduct four orbit manoeuvres from Master Control Facility to position the satellite in the Geosynchronous Orbit at 111.75 deg East longitude with 28.1 deg inclination. IRNSS-1E is the fifth of the seven satellites constituting the space segment of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. IRNSS-1A, 1B, 1C and ID, the first four satellites of the constellation, were successfully launched by PSLV on 2 July 2013, 4 April 2014, 16 October 2014 and 28 March 2015, respectively. All the four satellites are functioning satisfactorily from their designated orbital positions. IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide position information in the Indian region and 1500 km around the Indian mainland. IRNSS would provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Services (SPS) - provided to all users - and Restricted Services (RS), provided to authorised users. A number of ground stations responsible for the generation and transmission of navigation parameters, satellite ranging and monitoring, etc, have been established in eighteen locations across the country. The navigation system, which will cost about Rs1,400 crore, will help provide locational specificity. The satellites continuously beam down data that can be read by hand-held instruments or smart phones. ISRO says the system will have an error margin of no more than 20 metres. Source: domain-b.com

Read More........→January 21, 2016

Isro's PSLV-C28 successfully places 5 British satellites in orbit

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Friday successfully launched five British commercial satellites aboard its PSLV-C28 launch vehicle from its space port in Sriharikota, marking its heaviest commercial mission ever. ISRO's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C28, in its 13th flight, placed the five satellites, including three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites, in sun synchronous orbit about 20 minutes after lift-off at 9.58 PM from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. The three DMC3 satellites, each weighing 447 kg, were launched into a 647 km sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) using the high-end version of PSLV (PSLV-XL). ''It's been a wonderful mission… an extremely successful mission,'' a beaming ISRO chairman Kiran Kumar said from the Mission Control Centre. The three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites were built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) of the United Kingdom. The PSLV-C28 also carried two auxiliary satellites from the UK, viz, CBNT-1, a technology demonstrator earth observation micro satellite built by SSTL, and De-OrbitSail, a technology demonstrator nano satellite built by Surrey Space Centre. PSLV-C28 will be the ninth flight of the launch vehicle in 'XL' configuration. With the overall lift-off mass of 1,440 kg of the five satellites, this launch becomes the heaviest commercial mission till date undertaken by Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of ISRO . Accommodating the three DMC3 satellites each with a height of about 3 metre within the existing payload fairing of PSLV was a challenge, according to Isro. To mount these satellites onto the launcher, Isro designed a circular launcher adaptor called L-adaptor and a triangular deck called Multiple Satellite Adapter-Version 2 (MSA-V2). These international customer satellites have been launched as part of the arrangement entered into between DMC International Imaging (DMCii), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SSTL, UK and Isro's Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix). The DMC3 constellation, comprising of three advanced mini-satellites DMC3-1, DMC3-2 and DMC3-3, is designed to address the need for simultaneous high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution optical earth observation. Launched into a single low-earth orbit plane and phased with a separation of 120° between them, these satellites can image any target on the Earth's surface every day. Major application areas include surveying the resources on earth and its environment, managing urban infrastructure and monitoring of disasters. CBNT-1, weighing 91 kg, is an optical earth observation technology demonstration micro satellite built by SSTL. The 7-kg De-orbitSail from Surrey Space Centre, is an experimental nano satellite for demonstration of large thin membrane sail and drag deorbiting using this sail. Source: Article 

Read More........→July 19, 2015

ISRO to launch Google satellite

The Indian Space Research Organisation will be launching a satellite for Google’s Sky Box Imaging for GPS maps this year from its spaceport at Sriharikota. This will be the first US satellite to be launched by Isro. Google, which has acquired the satellite imaging company Sky Box Imaging, wants to develop precision maps using its own network of 180-odd satellites. The first among them is Sky Sat Gen II. Sky Box had entered into an agreement with Antrix Corporation before its takeover to launch the 120-kg satellite. It will be flown as a co-passenger along with the main payload during one of the satellite launchings this year. According to senior officials involved in space research, Google is keen on making use of Skybox satellites to keep Google Maps closer to real-time, accurate with up-to-date imagery. Google is also keen on using Skybox’s team and technology to help improve Internet access and disaster relief, the areas in which the company has long been interested. Shar director Dr M.Y.S. Prasad said that Sky Box Imaging had approached them to launch one of its satellites and had also informed that they had plans to place 180 micro satellites in orbit. “They may launch experimental satellites before going ahead. Although they want to us to launch a single satellite now, there is potential in future. This is the first US-based satellite being launched by Isro,” Dr Prasad said. Source: The Asian Age

Read More........→March 12, 2015