PSLV-C53 places Three Singapore Satellites In orbit, perfect launch
ISRO conducted the second launch of the year as it lifted off the PSLV-C53 mission from its Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
The second PSLV mission of the year of ISRO successfully launched three Singaporean satellites in to perfect orbit as planned. The mission also placed two small satellites, a student satellite INSPIREsat-1, and a technology demonstrator satellite, INS-2TD, a precursor to India-Bhutan Joint Satellite INS-2B.
Earlier the PSLV-C52 mission in February this year had injected a spy satellite Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-04), into an intended sun-synchronous polar orbit of 529 km altitude.
ISRO’s PSLV-C53 carrying DS-EO satellite along with two other co-passenger satellites successfully launched from the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, Thursday, June 30, 2022.
The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday launched three satellites for Singapore from its Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The PSLV-C53 mission lifted off at 06:02 pm to deploy the three satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
The spacecraft carried DS-EO satellite, NeuSAR, a 155 kg satellite, and Scoob-1 of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. This was the second launch mission for ISRO in the year and was the second commercial launch for the Indian space agency.
The DS-EO satellite carried an Electro-Optic, multi-spectral payload with 0.5 m resolution imaging capability. Meanwhile, the SCOOB-I is the first satellite in the Student Satellite Series (S3-I), a hands-on student training program from the Satellite Research Centre (SaRC) at Singapore’s NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
ISRO is attempting a new experiment with the four-stage rocket and use the fourth stage (PS4) to perform PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) activity. Under this, the team will perform in-orbit scientific experiments using the spent PS4 stage as an orbital platform.
POEM carries six payloads, including two from Indian Space Start-ups Digantara and Dhruva Aerospace, enabled through IN-SPACe and NSIL.
The PSLV is ISRO’s workhorse and has been its most successful launch vehicle developed indigenously. It has been launched 54 times in the past and was also responsible for launching India’s highly successful Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008 and the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 that later travelled to Mars.
The launch vehicle is capable of taking up to 1,750 kg of payload to Sun-Synchronous Polar Orbits of 600 km altitude. It has also been used to launch various satellites into Geosynchronous and Geostationary orbits, like satellites from the IRNSS constellation.
PSLV is 44 meters in length and has a diameter of 2.8 meters with a lift off mass of 320 tons. The second launch pad has so far conducted 29 other launches.
