ISRO launches mapping satellite, 13 US nano satellites

INDIAN Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday (27) successfully injected into orbit its earth imaging and mapping satellite CARTOSAT-3 along with 13 commercial nano satellites from the US.

ISRO Chairman K Sivan described today's launch as a "wonderful success."

With cloudy skies in the back ground, the 44.4 metre tall PSLV C47 rocket lifted off majestically at 9.28 am from the second launch pad at this spaceport here.

CARTOSAT-3, India's most complex and advanced earth imaging satellite built so far, was placed into orbit 17 minutes and 46 seconds after lift-off, the immediate mission after Chandrayaan 2, where the lander crashed while making a soft descent on the lunar surface on September 7.

All the 13 nano satellites from the US were released into the orbit at 26 minutes and 56 seconds after liftoff, ISRO said.

Sivan and other scientists broke into cheers as the earth imaging and mapping satellite was injected precisely into the desired orbit.

Later, speaking from the Mission Control Centre, Sivan said: "I am extremely happy to declare that PSLV-C47 precisely injected CARTOSAT-3 and 13 customer satellites successfully in the desired orbit of 509 kilometres."

"CARTOSAT-3 is India's highest resolution civilian satellite, and the most complex and advanced earth obvservation satellite ISRO has built so far," he said.

He congratulated the teams behind both the "wonderful" satellite as well as the launch vehicle, besides various review teams and industry partners involved in the mission.

"Let me once again wish or greet the entire ISRO team for a wonderful success," he said referring to Wednesday's launch.

On future missions, the ISRO chief said, "Our hands are full," with 13 missions slated upto March 2020.

"Having achieved such a wonderful mission, you may be asking what next. Our job is very very simple-- we are having 13 missions upto march... comprises of six launch vehicle missions and seven satellite missions (which) we are targeting before March," he said.

Team ISRO will "as usual" rise to the occassion and meet challenges and requirments and make every mission a "grand success," a beaming Sivan said, as relief was writ large on his face since the earlier mission Chandrayaan-2 did not yield the desired results.

Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), S Somanath also lauded the ISRO team.

Describing CARTOSAT-3 satellite's design as "innovative", he said it "witnessed a totally new development in the advanced technological area across the board, in all the domains like the payload, communication systems, optical systems" and so on.

With an overall mass of 1,625 kg, CARTOSAT-3 would address increased user's demands for large scale urban planning, rural resource and infrastructure development, coastal land use and land cover.      It will also serve military purposes.

PSLV-C47 is the 21st flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration (with 6 solid strap-on motors).

The 13 commercial nano-satellites from the US are being carried as part of commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) of the Department of Space.

Among the 13 commercial nano satellites are FLOCK-4P, 12 in numbers, with mission objective of earth observation, and one satellite named MESHBED, whose objective is communication test bed.

ISRO has said this would be the 74th launch vehicle mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

The PSLV is in its 49th mission while PSLV-XL variant on its 21^st mission.

CASRTOSAT-3 is the ninth in the Cartosat series and today's launch is the fifth for ISRO in 2019.