ISRO satellite launch

December 7, 2018

At exactly 9.58 am on Thursday, 29 th November, 2018, Indian Space Research Organisation’s reliable workhorse PSLV rocket soared into the skies from Sriharikota’s first launchpad carrying with it India’s first hyperspectral imaging satellite (HySIS), an advanced earth observation satellite, and 30 foreign satellites.

During the 112-minute-long mission, PSLV C43 will first deliver India’s primary satellite into the polar sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 630 km and then descend to release 30 international co-passengers at 504 km altitude in two batches.

The 30 commercial satellites, including one micro and 29 nano satellites, are from eight countries. Of the total 30 satellites whose combined weight is 261.5 kg, 23 are from the US. HySIS weighing 380kg will be used for a range of applications like agriculture, forestry, soil survey, geology, coastal zones, inland water studies, environmental studies and detection of pollution from industries. Being an earth observation satellite, it will also be used by the military for surveillance purpose.

The optical imaging detector array chip in the HySIS satellite has been designed by ISRO’s Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre and manufactured by its electronic arm, Semi-Conductor Laboratory, Chandigarh.

This launch was PSLVs 45th mission overall and 13th of PSLV C43 variant. In the last 25 years, ISRO has launched 52 Indian and 239 foreign satellites from 28 countries, carving a space for itself in the satellite launch market.