The eight nanosatellites include ISRO Nano Satellite-2 for Bhutan (INS-2B), Anand, Astrocast (four satellites), and two Thybolt satellites.
A polar satellite launch vehicle carrying earth observation and eight co-passenger satellites successfully lifted off from this spaceport at 11.56 a.m. on Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organisation said.
ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said, “The Performance were excitingly good in this mission.” The mission is said to be the last one undertaken by ISRO this year.
PSLV-C54 carries an Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-06) or Oceansat as its primary payload and eight co-passenger satellites are expected to be placed into sun synchronous orbits in over a two-hour time frame.
The entire separation of satellites is expected to take place in two hours after lift-off.
The Earth Observation Satellite-6 is the third-generation satellite in the Oceansat series. This is to provide continuity services of Oceansat-2 spacecraft with enhanced payload specifications as well as application areas.
The eight nanosatellites include ISRO Nano Satellite-2 for Bhutan (INS-2B), Anand, Astrocast (four satellites), and two Thybolt satellites. The INS-2B spacecraft will have two payloads namely NanoMx and APRS-Digipeater.
While the NanoMx is a multi-spectral optical imaging payload developed by Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, the APRS-Digipeater payload has been jointly developed by the Department of Information Technology and Telecom-Bhutan and the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.
The Anand nanosatellite developed by Bengaluru-based space start-up, Pixxel, is a technology demonstrator to demonstrate the capabilities and commercial applications of miniaturized Earth-observation cameras for Earth observation using a microsatellite in Low Earth Orbit.
Astrocast, developed by Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space, is a 3U spacecraft. It is a technology demonstrator satellite for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The U.S.-based Spaceflight has developed Thybolt which is a 0.5U spacecraft bus that includes a communication payload to enable rapid technology demonstration and constellation development for multiple users.
This is the 56th flight of PSLV and 24th Flight of PSLV-XL version with 6 PSOM-XLs. PSLV-C54 launch is planned from First Launch Pad (FLP), SDSC, SHAR.
Thousands of school students from Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Bengaluru gathered at ISRO to watch this rocket take off.
(With inputs from PTI)
thehindu.com