At 05:59 a.m. today, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle with two smaller co-passenger satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre’s First Launch Pad in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
This was the ISRO’s first launch mission of 2022, which began with a 25-hour countdown yesterday.
“The countdown process of 25 hours and 30 minutes leading up to the launch of PSLV-C52/EOS-04 Mission has begun at 04:29 hours today,” the city-based ISRO stated in a tweet.
The launch vehicle is designed to place the 1,710 kg EOS-04 earth observation satellite into a 529 km sun-synchronous polar orbit.
EOS-04 is a Radar Imaging Satellite that will offer high-resolution photographs in all-weather circumstances for applications such as agriculture, forestry, and plantations, soil moisture and hydrology, and flood mapping.
Two scientific payloads aboard INSPIREsat-1, which has a mass of 8.1 kg and a one-year mission length, are targeted at bettering our understanding of ionosphere dynamics and coronal heating processes on the sun.
The mission life of INS-2TD is six months, with a mass of 17.5 kg.
The satellite’s payload includes a thermal imaging camera, which aids in the assessment of land surface temperature, water surface temperature of wetlands or lakes, vegetation identification (crops and forests), and thermography.
Following the injection of EOS-04, the two tiny satellites INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD were launched into orbit.
“PSLV-C52/mission EOS-04’s has been completed successfully. PSLV-C52 has placed the primary satellite EOS-04 into a very exact orbit, and co-passenger satellites INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD have also been placed into the correct orbit “After the successful launch, ISRO Chairman S Somanath stated.
