ISRO to launch 3 satellites in 1st qtr of 2011

ISRO has planned three major missions, including launch of advanced remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2, in the next three months.

"The coming three months are going to be eventful with three major milestones to be achieved," ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan told an international conference here.

He said homegrown PSLV-C16 launch vehicle has been assembled at Sriharikota spaceport and Resourcesat-2 and Youthsat, with advanced optical payloads, are being readied for shipment there for launch.

PSLV-C17 assembly would commence soon for Geostationary Transfer Orbit mission to launch GSAT-12, a communication satellite, to be immediately followed by four PSLVs and flight testing of Indian Cryogenics Stage after tests on ground.

Another communication satellite GSAT-8 is getting ready for launch onboard European rocket Ariane-5 in April-May 2011.

'Resourcesat-2', 'Youthsat', a participatory scientific mission with payloads from Russia and India and X-sat, Singapore's first indigenous satellite, will be launched on board homegrown PSLV C-16, he said.

"We have three major missions slated to be done in coming February, March and April. Among them Resourcesat-2 is meant to replace Resourcesat-1, launched in 2003, to provide data connectivity," Radhakrishnan said.

'Youthsat' would carry a payload developed by students of Moscow university in Russia," he told the meet organised by Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) and Optical Society of India (OSI).

Alluding to the recent failure of GSLV, the chairman said, "We have several success stories and a couple of failures. We will learn from our failures."

The cause of the failure had been pinpointed and anything definite could be stated only after detailed evaluation and studies, he said.

GSLV-F06, powered by a Russian cryogenic engine, carrying GSAT-5P failed in its mission on December 25 when the rocket suffered a snag seconds after the liftoff and exploded in flames before falling into the Bay of Bengal.