On September 9, the Indian Space Research Organisation will launch its hundredth mission. Over a period of 49 years, the space agency has sent up 63 satellites and 36 launchers, made indigenously.
The ISRO says it will be a routine, no-frills event, with just two foreign commercial launches going on board the PSLV-C21. It will not carry an Indian satellite.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will witness the milestone event scheduled for 9.50 a.m. at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
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Confirming this, ISRO spokesman told
Atal Behari Vajpayee was the last Prime Minister to witness a launch — that of the ISRO Oceansat-1 on May 26, 1999; Dr. Singh has visited the site on another occasion.
The PSLV-C21 will put in orbit a 712-kg French remote sensing satellite, SPOT-6, and a 15-kg Japanese microsatellite. They will be placed in polar slots (where the satellites move from pole to pole) at a distance of 655 km from the Earth’s surface.
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SPOT-6 will be released first, followed by Proiteres, the experimental Japanese spacecraft, the official said.
The workhorse PSLV rocket can take up a weight of around 2,000 kg for a polar launch. The C21 will fly in the “core alone” format without the six additional strapped-on motors. This configuration will be about 30 per cent less than the standard mode with four smaller strap-on motors, the official said.
At over 700 kg, SPOT-6 will be the ISRO’s heaviest since it started doing paid launches in late 1990s. The 27 foreign satellites it has launched so far weighed between 1 and 320 kg. Italy’s Agile has been the first heavier spacecraft to date and was placed in orbit in April 2007.
This article is corrected for a factual error.