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Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh): An Indian rocket carrying two satellites blasted off from
the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here in
Andhra Pradesh Sunday, with the launch being witnessed by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh.
The rocket carried two foreign satellites - SPOT 6, a French
satellite and a Japanese micro satellite called Proiteres.
Manmohan Singh along with Minister in Prime Minister Office, V.
Narayanasamy, were present to witness the launch at the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) here. Sriharikota is around 80
km north of Chennai.
Exactly at 9.51 a.m., the rocket - Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle-C21 (PSLV-C21), standing around 44 metres tall and
weighing around 230 tonne, with a one way ticket - hurtled towards
the skies ferrying the two foreign satellites - SPOT 6, a French
earth observation satellite weighing 712 kg and 15 kg micro
satellite Proiteres of Japan.
The cost of the rocket is around Rs.75 crores.
Proiteres is intended to study powered flight of a small satellite
by an electric thruster and observe Japan's Kansai district with a
high resolution camera.
Manmohan Singh watched the historic 100th mission of the Indian
space agency and scientists at Indian Space Research
Organisation's (ISRO) rocket's mission control room kept an eye on
the rocket that escaped the earth's gravitational pull.
ISRO officials are hoping that the agency's 100th space mission
will turn out to be a grand success.
The PSLV-C21 rocket is expected to deliver SPOT 6 and Proiteres
into a 655 km polar orbit.
Remote sensing satellites send back pictures and other data. The
SPOT and Indian remote sensing satellites are the two leading
earth observation satellite series.
Interestingly SPOT 6 is the heaviest foreign satellite to be
carried by a PSLV rocket since 1999 when ISRO started launching
satellites owned by foreign agencies.
ISRO has been carrying foreign satellites since 1999 initially as
an add-on luggage to its own satellite.
It was with Agile, a 350 kg Italian satellite, that ISRO started
flying a full commercial rocket. Till date ISRO has launched 27
foreign satellites successfully and the Sunday mission would take
the tally to 29.
The successful launch of SPOT 6 would make ISRO's PSLV rocket a
strong contender to carry SPOT 7 planned by French company Astrium
SAS soon.
According to ISRO, the satellite launch agreement between Antrix
and Astrium is part of the long-term agreement signed between the
two agencies in September 2008.
The space agency has also jointly built two heavy satellites -
3,453 kg W2M and 2,541 kg Hylas - for the French agency.
India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites
in the world providing imagery in a variety of spatial
resolutions, from more than a metre ranging up to 500 metres, and
is a major player in vending such data in the global market.
With 12 remote sensing/earth observation satellites orbiting in
the space, India is a world leader in the remote sensing data
market. The 12 satellites are TES, Resourcesat 1, Cartosat 1, 2,
2A and 2B, IMS 1, Risat-2, Oceansat 2, Resourcesat-2,
Megha-Tropiques and Risat-1.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
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