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Chennai: The fuelling
of the second stage of the Indian rocket that would sling seven
satellites into space Feb 25 evening is expected to be done by
Monday morning while the countdown for the launch is progressing
smoothly, said officials of the Indian space agency.
"The countdown is smooth and is normal. The fuelling of second
stage of the four-stage rocket will begin tonight (Sunday) and
will get over tomorrow (Monday) morning," an official of the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), preferring anonymity,
told IANS.
President Pranab Mukherjee is slated to witness the launch of the
first of the 10 space missions planned by the ISRO in 2013.
The 44.4-metre tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C20 (PSLV-C20)
rocket, with a lift-off weight of 229.7 tonnes, will sling into
orbit seven satellites - one Indo-French and six foreign
satellites.
The seven satellites together weigh 668.5 kg. The entire flight
sequence - lift-off to the ejection of the seventh satellite at an
altitude of 794 km above the earth - will take around 22 minutes.
The successful launch of the satellites will take ISRO's tally of
launching foreign satellites to 35. ISRO started putting into
space third-party satellites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2
rocket.
Since then India has been successful in launching medium-weight
satellites for overseas agencies. Initially ISRO started carrying
third-party satellite atop PSLC rockets as co-passengers of its
own remote sensing/earth observation satellites.
Later in 2007, ISRO launched an Italian satellite Agile as a
standalone luggage for a fee.
India began its space journey in 1975 with the launch of
Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and till date, it has completed
100 missions.
On Monday, the PSLV-C20 rocket will carry the 407-kg Indo-French
satellite SARAL (Satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA) as the primary
luggage and six other satellites as piggy-back.
The SARAL will study the sea surface heights and the data
generated will be shared by both the countries.
According to ISRO, the SARAL satellite is the first under the
Indian mini-satellite bus-series 2 configured for 400 kg
satellites.
The Indian space agency states this satellite frame is envisaged
to be the workhorse for different types of operational missions in
the coming years.
The other six satellites the PSLV-C20 would carry are two Canadian
satellite NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Space Surveillance
Satellite), the world's first space telescope designed by Canadian
Space Agency (CSA), and Sapphire satellite built by MacDonald,
Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), BRITE and UniBRITE (both Austria),
STRaND-1 (Britain) and AAUSAT (Denmark).
The STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite
Demonstrator) is the world's first 'smart phone satellite'
carrying Google Nexus One phone running on Android operating
system.
The 6.5 kg satellite is a Britain mission, jointly developed by
the University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey
Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
The phone will run several applications, including collection of
data and take pictures of the earth with its camera.
Once all the satellites' own operating systems have been checked
out, key system functions will be transferred to the phone's
components to take control and operate the satellite, said SSTL on
its website.
According to the CPA, the satellite NEOSSat will detect and track
asteroids and satellites circling the globe every 100 minutes and
scanning space near the Sun to pinpoint otherwise almost invisible
asteroids.
The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space
objects, including space debris.
On the other hand, Sapphire will look for resident space objects
that include functioning satellites and space debris circling
between 6,000 km and 40,000 km above the earth.
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