ISRO launched a new satellite for Ocean and Weather studies

ISRO on Monday launched PSLV’s longest flight SCATSAT-1 at 9:12 am for ocean and weather studies. The 320-tonne rocket, carrying eight satellites, blasted off from the launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. This launch is said to be ISRO’s longest mission spread over two hours and fifteen minutes.

The rocket’s main cargo will be the 371 kg SCATSAT-1 for ocean and weather related studies. This will be placed into a 730-km polar sun synchronous orbit around 17 minutes into the flight. PSLV C-35 took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, about 110 km from Chennai at 9.12 AM. SCATSAT-1, the primary satellite, is meant for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking. 

ISRO said in a statement the SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for Oceansat-2 scatterometer to provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users. The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer which is similar to the one put onboard the Oceansat-2. The mission life of the satellite is five years, said ISRO.

The rocket is carrying five foreign and three Indian satellites. Among the five foreign satellites, three are from Algeria namely Alsat-1B 103kg, Alsat-2B 117kg, Alsat-1N 7kg, and one each from Canada (NLS-19, 8kg) and the US (Pathfinder-44kg). The two other Indian satellites are: Pratham (10kg) built by Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay (IIT-Bombay) and Pisat (5.25 kg) from PES University, Bengaluru and its consortium. 

While PRATHAM’s objective is to estimate Total Electron Count, PISAT’s mission is to design and develop a nanosatellite for remote sensing applications.

These eight satellites will be placed in a 689-km polar orbit. This is the first mission of PSLV where it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits. According to ISRO after putting into orbit SCATSAT-1, the rocket’s fourth stage or the engine will be shut down.

The fourth stage will be restarted and cut off one hour 22 minutes after the blast off twice. Two hours and 11 minutes into the flight the fourth stage will be restarted. Four minutes later all the seven satellites would be put into their intended orbit. The switching off and switching on of the rocket’s fourth stage is called multiple burn technology which was first tested by ISRO while flying its PSLV rocket on December 16, 2015. 

Source: TheIndianExpress