JOIN USThe Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch PSLV rocket carrying Cartosat2 series with the 28-hour countdown process for the takeoff started on Thursday morning.
A senior ISRO official told Deccan Herald that after getting clearance from the Mission Readiness Review (MRR) committee and Launch Authorisation Board (LAB), the countdown of the PSLV-C38/Cartosat2 series mission started at 5.29 am.
"Fuel filling operation of fourth stage the rocket is under progress", the official said.
He said all the health parameters of the rocket and the satellite was good after the countdown process. The rocket will take off from the first launch pad at 9.29 am on Friday from the spaceport of Sriharikota.
According to him, this will be the seventeenth flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration (with the use of solid strap-on motors).
The primary Cartosat-2 series satellite is a remote sensing satellite. After its injection into the required orbit, the satellite will be brought to operational configuration following which it will begin providing regular remote sensing services using its panchromatic and multi spectral cameras.
The imagery sent by the satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and man-made features and various other land information system as well as geographical information system (GIS) applications.
The co-passenger satellites comprise 29 Nano satellites from 14 countries such as Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and the United States of America as well as one Nano satellite from India.
The total weight of all these satellites carried onboard PSLV-C38 is about 955 kg.
The 29 International customer Nano satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS) and the commercial arm of ISRO and the International customers.