ISRO completes 50 launches from Sriharikota with launch of PSLV-C29

The launch also enables ISRO to develop rockets that can launch orbits at different orbits in one flight

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has completed 50 launches from the Satellite Launching Station in Sriharikota Range, known as SHAR, with the successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C29, carrying six Satellites of Singapore on Wednesday. This is the 32nd flight of PSLV and 11th flight of the launch vehicle in 'core-alone' configuration, which is without the use of solid strap-on motors.

"In the 50th launch, we have put six satellites of a country which is celebrating its 50th year. I congradulate the entire ISRO team for the wonderful job," said A S Kiran Kumar, chairman, ISRO, after the completion of the mission.

P Kunhikrishnan, director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, added that this is also the 50th year of bilateral co-operation between India and Singapore. "We have established a remarkable milestone in the space history of India by completing 50 launches from Sriharikotta, starting with SLV launch in 1979," he said.

Situated on an island off Sullurupeta - a small town in Nellore district, of the state Andhra Pradesh the launch centre located at Sriharikota, was named as Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR in September 2002, in memory of Professor Satish Dhawan, who was Chairman of ISRO from 1972 to 1984.

PSLV-C29

Today's launch was a tough one owing to the bad weather, heavy rainfall over the region. "It was the first ever campaign ISRO has taken up in the month of November, when the weather waggeries generally set upon here," said Kunhikrishnan. Despite heavy rain in Chennai and other places in the region creating various issues to the operations, ISRO was able to complete the works before the scheduled date, said the officials.

As scheduled, at 6 pm, the 44.4 metres tall PSLV rocket with a vehicle lift off mass of 227 tonne took off from the first launch pad at Sirharikota space station, around 90 kms from Chennai. With around 620 kg of luggage, it completed the launch of all the satellites in its intended orbit in 21 minutes into its flight.

After injecting all the satellites, the mission also carried out a major experiment to restart the fourth stage engine. Success of this would give ISRO the mission flexibility to plan different orbital missions in a single launch vehicle missions. While ISRO has been launching multiple satellites in a single rocket, launching it in different orbits has been a challenge.

An official said that the restart was successful and the multiple burn fuel engine might be used in the PSLV-C35, to launch satellite in two different orbits.

Of the six satellites launched today, the 400 kg earth observation satellite called TeLEOS-1 is the main passenger for the PSLV rocket and hence the mission is called TeLEOS mission by ISRO.

TeLEOS-1 is Singapore's first commercial earth observation satellite designed and developed by ST Electronics. The other five co-passenger satellites are VELOX-C1 (123 kg), VELOX-II (13 kg), Kent Ridge-1 (78 kg), Galassia (3.4 kg) and Athenoxat-1.

The successful launch of these satellites takes ISRO's total flights of foreign satellites to 57.

Today's mission was the second fully commercial mission for ISRO's commercial arm Antrix in 2015. The earlier one was in July and the launcher carried five British satellites in the mission. Antrix has proved launch services on-board PSLV for 51 customer saellites from 20 countries.

Future launches

With the launch of PSLV-C29, ISRO has completed all its launches for the year 2015. PSLV-C29 is a take off for a sequel of monthly launches from Sriharikotta, starting with three remaining missions of the navigation satellites to complete the IRNSS Constellation, said Kunhikrishnan.

Thanking his colleagues, Kumar said that ISRO has a lot more to do and achieve during next year and would be working towards that.

ISRO has launched 20 satellites, including three Indian and 17 foreign, from Sriharikotta this year. These includes 19 satellites launched through PSLV rocket and one communication satellite - GSAT-6-with geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV).

Last month India launched its communication satellite GSAT-15 using the Ariane rocket of the European space agency which takes the total number of satellite launches in 2015 to 21 (17 foreign, four Indian).

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