|
Sriharikota
(AP):
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on
Wednesday placed in orbit seven satellites including Oceansat-2
within a span of 20 minutes, its first successful mission after the
abrupt end of the ambitious Chandrayaan-I project.
At
the end of the 51-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage
PSLV-C14 blasted off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan
Space Centre here with ignition of the core first stage and put the
satellites in orbit one after another.
Scientists cheered as ISRO's workhorse, PSLV soared majestically
into clear skies at 11.51 AM from the spaceport in the East Coast in
Andhra Pradesh, about 100 km north of Chennai, with the launch
watched by Vice President Hamid Ansari.
Oceansat-2, the country's 16th remote sensing satellite, will
identify potential fishing zones, sea state forecasting and coastal
zone studies, besides providing inputs on weather forecasting and
climate studies.
A
set of six nano satellites rode piggyback accompanying Oceansat-2 on
its trip to orbit.
Ansari and senior scientist M G K Menon, who were present in the
mission centre, congratulated ISRO scientists soon after the
successful launch.
Besides two German Rubin nano satellites, other Oceansat-2
co-passengers are four cubesats: Beesat, built by Technical
University Berlin, UWE-2 (University of Wuerzburg Germany),
ITU-pSat(Istanbul Technical University Turkey) and SwissCube-1 (Ecole
Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland).
ISRO
Chairman G Madhavan Nair, addressing scientists, described it as "a
perfect and precise launch."
Congratulating space scientists for the fantastic achievement, Nair
said "the launch has once again proved our capability. It is an
example of fine teamwork and the maturity of PSLV launch vehicle has
been proved."
An
in-orbit replacement to Oceansat-1, which was used to study physical
and biological aspects of oceanography, Oceansat-2 will have a
mission life of five years. Oceansat-1 has completed 10 years of
space odyssey.
The
nano satellites, in the two-eight kg range, are educational
spacecraft from European Universities intended to test new
technologies.
Oceansat-2 was injected into space first and the remaining were
placed in orbit one after another, officials said.
The
eight band Ocean Colour Monitor carried by Oceansat-2 images a swath
(strip of land or ocean) of 1,420 km with a resolution of 360 metres
and works in the visible and Near infrared region of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The Scatterometer covers a swath of 1,400
km and operates continuously.
In
April 2008, ISRO had launched 10 satellites in a single mission --
one big spacecraft (Cartosat-2A) and nine nano satellites.
Wednesday's PSLV was a core alone version without six strap on
motors that surround the first stage in the standard PSLV format.
PSLV's fourth stage fired five satellites into orbit and the two
Rubin satellites will remain permanently attached to the vehicle's
fourth stage. Rubin satellites, which were not separated, will do
their work while attached to the PSLV fourth stage, according to
ISRO officials.
Oceansat 2 was placed in polar sunsynchronous orbit of 720 km above
Earth, as in the case of its predecessor.
|
Science, a
tool to know the laws of nature and divinity - Dr. Aslam
Parvaiz: 
Malegaon
Blast 3 years on
The
Men Inspired by Debacles:
Skilled Hands converting couplets 
"
First Lady MPSC of Malegaon devotes herself to poor
people: 
Zafar Shaikh-
Comment on this article