NEW DELHI, Feb 28: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday successfully completed the current year’s first mission launching Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 and 18 other co-satellites, including five of India’s and 13 of the United States, through the country’s polar rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
The satellites were carried on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C51), the 53rd flight of India’s workhorse launch vehicle and the first dedicated mission for New Space India Ltd (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO. The mission was undertaken under a commercial arrangement with Spaceflight Inc., USA.
The PSLV-C51 lifted off at around 10.24 am from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and injected into orbit primary payload Amazonia-1 about 17 minutes later.
After a gap of over one-and-half hours, the other 18 co-passenger customer satellites, including one from Chennai- based Space Kidz India (SKI), which is engraved with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were launched one after another and placed into their intended orbits in the space of ten minutes in a textbook launch. The entire operation of the mission took about 1 hour and 55 minutes to complete.
Of the 18 satellites, 13 were from the US, one of them a technology demonstration satellite and the remaining for 2-way satellite communications and data relay. Among the five Indian satellites, one belongs to DRDO.
SKI’s Satish Dhawan Satellite (SD-SAT) also carried the Bhagavad Gita in a Secured Digital card format. According to SKI, the picture of Modi has been engraved on the top panel of the spacecraft to show solidarity and gratitude for his Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and space sector privatisation.
A beaming ISRO Chairman K Sivan announced that the mission was successful and all 19 satellites were launched in precise orbits.
“Today is a very great day for the entire ISRO team and the PSLV-C51 is a special mission for India. Let me congratulate and compliment the team ISRO for achieving the precise injection of AMAZONIA-1 and 18 other satellites.”
“This particular mission is special because these five Indian satellites are coming under the new space reform announced by the Government of India. These institutes have done an excellent job. ISRO has promoted, handheld and all along helped them to build these satellites technically correctly to launch them,” ISRO Chairman, K. Sivan said. He said ISRO had 14 missions planned this year, including the first unmanned mission around the end of the year.
PSLV-C51 is the first dedicated commercial mission of New Space India Limited (NSIL), ISRO’s commercial arm, and the launch was watched among others by Brazilian government officials at the mission control centre in Sriharikota.
The 637-kg Amazonia-1, which became the first Brazilian satellite to be launched from India, is an optical earth observation satellite of National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and is intended for providing remote sensing data to users for monitoring deforestation in the Amazon region and analysis of diversified agriculture across the Brazilian territory. The Amazonia-1 was injected into its precise orbit of 758 km in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.
Modi congratulated the space agency on the success of the first dedicated commercial launch of PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission, saying it ushers in a new era of space reforms in the country. He added that 18 co-passengers included four small satellites that showcase dynamism and innovation of our youth.
The prime minister also congratulated Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on the successful launch of Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite by PSLV-C51, and said this was a historic moment in space cooperation between the two countries.
According to a press release, Marcos Cesar Pontes, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Brazil, also congratulated the ISRO team, saying “Amazonia-1 is an important mission for Brazil which also marks beginning of a new era for satellite development in the country.”
“This moment represents the top of all this effort made by so many people in our National Institute for Space Research and our Space agency. This is a very important mission for Brazil and it represents a new era for Brazilian industry for satellites. This is one positive step of our partnership that is going to grow. Congratulations on a beautiful launch. We are going to work together and this is the beginning of our partnership,” Pontes said.
Earlier, at the end of the 25.5 hour countdown, the four-stage 44.4 metre tall PSLV, a workhorse launch vehicle of ISRO in its 53rd mission, soared into clear sky and every stage performed as programmed, ISRO said.
According to an ISRO press release, this was the 78th launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR in Sriharikota. With today’s launch, a total of 342 customer satellites from 34 countries have been placed in orbit by PSLV.
(Manas Dasgupta)
