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February 25, 2013
PSLV-C20 / SARAL launch
An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket successfully launched on February 25th 2013 at 12:31 UTC carrying Saral and 6 commercial secondary payloads into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
Launch of Indian PSLV Rocket with Saral
ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C20, successfully launched the joint Indo-French Satellite, SARAL, today in its twenty third flight from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. Six other satellites, namely, UNIBRITE (NLS 8.1) and BRITE (NLS 8.2) from Austria, SAPPHIRE and NEOSSAT from Canada, AAUSAT-3 (NLS 8.3) from Denmark; and STRaND-1 from the United Kingdom, have also been launched into their planned orbits along with SARAL.
At the completion of the countdown, PSLV-C20 lifted off from the First Launch Pad at SDSC SHAR, at 1801 hrs (IST) with the ignition of the first stage of the launch vehicle. The important flight events, namely, stage ignitions, heat-shield separation, stage separations and satellite injections took place exactly as planned.
After a flight of 17 minutes 55 seconds, the main payload, SARAL, weighing 407 kg was injected to an orbit very close to the intended orbit. Following this, the six auxiliary satellites were also successfully injected.
SARAL ocean altimetry satellite
This has been the twenty second successive successful launch of ISRO's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV. Since its first successful launch in 1994, PSLV has launched 27 Indian satellites and 35 satellites for customers from abroad, including the satellites launched today. It has also launched India's geosynchronous satellites, Kalpana-1 and GSAT-12, thereby proving its versatility. PSLV also launched India's first spacecraft mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, in 2008. It is scheduled to launch India's first interplanetary mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft, by the end of this year.
Satellite with Argos and Altika (SARAL) is an oceanographic satellite jointly developed by ISRO and the French Space Agency CNES. The satellite is built by ISRO, whereas CNES contributed the ARGOS and ALTIKA payloads. Data from SARAL will be useful for researchers besides having many practical applications like marine meteorology and sea state forecasting, climate monitoring, continental ice studies, environmental monitoring, protection of biodiversity and improvement in maritime security.
ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore took over the SARAL's monitoring and control operations immediately after its injection. Following the automatic deployment of SARAL's solar panels, shortly after reaching orbit, all the subsequent operations are proceeding normally.
For more information about ISRO, visit: http://www.isro.org/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) / CNES.
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