ISRO reschedules Cartosat launch

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today said it has rescheduled the May 9 launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15), that was to put into space the country’s advanced, high-resolution remote-sensing spacecraft Cartosat-2B and four other satellites.

“A marginal drop in the pressure in the second stage of the vehicle was noticed during mandatory checks carried out on the PSLV-C15 vehicle,” the ISRO said in a statement here. “The new date for the launch of PSLV-C15 mission will be decided after preliminary results of the analysis are obtained,” it said.

The launch was slated for May 9 at 9.23 am from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh. Apart from Cartosat-2B, PSLV-C15 is set to launch an Algerian satellite ALSAT-2A, two nano satellites NLS 6.1 and NLS 6.2 from University of Toronto, Canada and STUDSAT, a satellite built by students from academic institutions in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The Cartosat-2B is expected to give a boost to the tasks of infrastructure and urban planning. The on board camera would provide scene specific spot imageries for cartographic and a host of other civilian applications. The GSLV-D3 mission, whose main objective was to flight-test the indigenous cryogenic engine and stage for the first time, had failed recently. A committee is analysing the reasons for the failure.