ISRO's PSLV rocket lifts off with 2 Singapore satellites

Carrying two Singapore satellites and seven non-separating Indian payloads, Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) PSLV rocket blasted off successfully from the first launch pad of the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, 110 km from here on Saturday.

PSLV-C55, which is a dedicated commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), took off at 2.19 pm with TeLEOS-2 and Lumelite-4, Singapore satellites, and seven non-separating Poem-2 payloads such as Aris-2, PiLOT, Arka200, Starberry, DSOL, DSOD-3U, and DSOD-6U.

“Congratulations PSLV and NSIL for this successful launch... There are interesting things lined up in the near future,” ISRO chairman S Somnath said, adding that the PSLV has once again demonstrated its high reliability.

Somnath further said the ISRO in this mission had a core alone configuration of the PSLV which has many specialities and improvements made to bring down the cost of the rocket as well as its integration time. “And this is the goal--to have increased production and launches of PSLV in the times to come,” he added.

The mission has the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM), where the spent PS4 stage of the launch vehicle would be utilized as an orbital platform to carry out scientific experiments through non-separating payloads. The payloads belong to ISRO/Department of Space, Bellatrix, Dhruva Space, and Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

While TeLEOS-2 will provide all-weather day and night coverage, and capable of imaging at 1m full-polarimetric resolution, LUMELITE-4 is an advanced 12U satellite developed for the technological demonstration of the high-performance space-borne VHF Data Exchange System (VDES).

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Using the VDES communication payload developed by I2R and STAR’s scalable satellite bus platform, it aims to augment Singapore’s e-navigation maritime safety and benefit the global shipping community. While TeLEOS-2 is the primary satellite, Lumelite-4 is the co-passenger satellite and this is

57th flight of PSLV and 16th mission using the PSLV Core Alone configuration (PSLV-CA).

ISRO said the PSLV-C55 mission will carry out in-orbit scientific experiments by using the spent PS4 stage as an orbital platform. This is the third time that PS4 will be used after satellite separations as a platform for experiments.

“There will be non-separable payloads mounted on MSA. Payloads will be powered ON by a command, after all satellites are separated. The platform will have a solar panel mounted around a PS4 tank which will be deployed after confirmation of the stage achieving stabilization,” ISRO said.

The deployment of the solar panels will be through a ground command and the platform will ensure that the deployed solar panel points towards the Sun optimally using appropriate sun pointing mode, which will increase the power generation capability of the platform. The power will be provided to payloads and avionic packages based on their requirements.