ISRO to put 8 satellites in two orbits today

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a PSLV rocket from Sriharikota at 9.12 a.m. on Monday to put eight satellites into two different orbits.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a PSLV rocket from Sriharikota at 9.12 a.m. on Monday to put eight satellites into two different orbits.

Besides SCATSAT-1, a 371-kg satellite for weather studies, the ISRO would launch two satellites designed by Indian educational institutions (PISAT and PRATHAM), three commercial ones from Algeria (ALSAT-1B, 2B and 1N) and one each for Canada (NLS-19) and the United States (Pathfinder-1).

The ISRO said on Sunday that the countdown for the launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota was progressing smoothly. This would be the first mission of the PSLV to launch its payloads into two different orbits, it said.

Weather forecasting

Soon after the launch, SCATSAT-1 would be positioned at an altitude of 730 km in the polar sun synchronous orbit. The satellite, with a life of five years, would provide weather forecasting services through wind-vector products.

The 10-kg PRATHAM, designed by the IIT-Bombay, would estimate the total electron count with a resolution of 1km x 1km location grid.

The PISAT (5.25 kg), from PES University in Bengaluru, would explore remote sensing applications.

ALSAT-1B is an earth-observation satellite (103 kg), ALSAT-2B is a remote-sensing satellite (117 kg) and ALSAT-1N (7 kg) is a technology demonstrator.