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 city-based ISRO stated in a tweet that “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 launch vehicle is designed to place the 1,710 kg EOS-04 earth observation satellite into a 5all-weather 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.
A student satellite (INSPIREsat-1) from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) in collaboration with the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, is one of the two smaller co-passenger satellites. NTU, Singapore, and NCU, Taiwan, have also contributed.
This spacecraft has two scientific payloads that will help researchers better understand ionosphere dynamics and solar coronal heating processes.
The other is an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) technology demonstrator satellite (INS-2TD), which is a predecessor to the India-Bhutan Joint Satellite (INS-2B). The satellite’s payload, a thermal imaging camera, aids in the assessment of land surface temperature, water surface temperature of wetland or lakes, vegetation demarcation (crops and forests), and thermal inertia (day and night).
This will be PSLV’s 54th flight and the 23rd mission using the PSLV-XL configuration, which includes six PSOM-XLs (strap-on motors).
