Stage set for PSLV C20 launch today

Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) 23rd Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) mission, the PSLV-C20, is set to launch the 4,089-kg Indo-French satellite Saral along with six commercial payloads — six foreign mini and micro satellites — on Monday at 5.56 pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

This will be the second highest number of satellites to be flown on a PSLV. In April 2008, it had put in orbit 10 satellites, including the national Cartosat-2A, on the PSLV-C9 rocket.

The Isro-built Saral is a 410-kg satellite with payloads — Argos and Altika — from French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) for study of ocean parameters.

Saral stands for 'Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa.

CNES has provided the two primary devices and ISRO is responsible for building and launching the spacecraft according to an agreement signed in February 2007 between the two governments. “The countdown is going on smoothly and the launch should be on schedule,” official ISRO spokesperson D P Karnik told Business Standard on Sunday evening.

The indigenous PSLV has been configured in a ‘core-alone’ or bare-bones format without the solid strap-on motors. “This will be the ninth core-alone flight of a PSLV,” said ISRO in a release.

Of the six small experimental payloads it will fly for a fee, two each are from universities in Canada and Austria and one each from the UK and Denmark.

The PSLV has an impeccable record of 21 consecutive successful flights. The 668.5-kg, 44.4-metre rocket will have a lift off mass of 229.7 tonnes.

ISRO had initially planned to launch Saral on December 12, 2012, but postponed it to carry out additional tests at Bangalore and in Sriharikota to “address technical issues to ensure reliability”.

President Mukherjee is expected to witness the event. The 59-hour countdown for the launch, which commenced at 6.56 am yesterday, was progressing normally, said ISRO sources.

The mission is a result of the common interest of both ISRO and CNES to study the ocean using altimetry (measurement of height or altitude) system and in promoting use of the Argos data collecting system, according to Isro.