In its longest ever mission spread over two hours, India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV today successfully launched eight satellites, including the country's SCATSAT-1 and five satellites from other nations, in two different orbits to achieve another milestone.
There were two Fourth Stage Engine restarts for the purpose of injecting the satellites into different orbits.
SCATSAT-1, the 371 kg primary satellite, was first injected in a 730 km Polar Sunsynchronous Orbit (SSO) after 17-odd minutes after the 44.4 metre tall PSLV-C35 lifted off at 9.12 AM from the spaceport here.
The rocket then achieved with precision the designated task of injecting the other satellites after over 2 hours and 15 minutes, in a lower polar orbit of 689 km.
The total weight of the payloads carried by PSLV in its 15th flight in 'XL' configuration was about 675 kg.
Besides SCATSAT-1, the other satellites which were injected in orbit were two Indian university satellites, PRATHAM and PISAT, three from Algeria-- ALSAT-1B, ALSAT-2B and ALSAT-1N and one each from the US and Canada--Pathfinder-1 and NLS-19, respectively.
ISRO said the SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for Oceansat-2 scatterometer to provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users. The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer which is similar to the one put onboard the Oceansat-2. The mission life of the satellite is five years, said ISRO.
ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar congratulated the scientists and described the achievement as a landmark and said data from SCATSAT would be made available within 180 minutes.
"After a long gap of almost two hours where the fourth stage has been manoeuvred, it has been restarted and the entire mission had gone on very successfully...Let me take this time to congratulate the entire ISRO team for the excellent job they have done...".
"Today has been an indeed a landmark day for us...We have been able to achieve a launch of eight satelites... Our own Scatterometer which is actually a stop-gap arrangement between Oceansat-1 and Oceansat 2. This is a satellite which is going to provide ocean wind vectors to the global community for numeric weather forecasting model.
"This data will be made available within 180 minutes of acquisition of data.
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