Countdown for launch of 7 Singaporean satellites with PSLV rocket begins

The Sunday rocketing mission will be the third commercial mission for ISROin 2023.“The countdown began at 5.01 a.m., a senior official of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.The Indian space agency will be launching seven Singaporean satellites onJuly 30 at 6.30 a.m. using its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).The rocket will blast off from the first launch pad.If the mission turns out to be successful, ISRO would have launched 431foreign satellites from 36 countries since 1999.Looking back at the year, ISRO had two successful commercial launches. Thefirst one was the launch of 36 satellites belonging to the UK-based OneWebwith the LVM3 rocket in March.The second one was the orbiting of two satellites from Singapore TeLEOS-2and Lumilite-4 satellite in April with PSLV rocket.On Sunday, the PSLV rocket with the code PSLV-C56 will carry the Singaporean DS-SAR satellite weighing about 360 kg as the main passenger.The other six co-passengers are small satellites -- VELOX-AM, ARCADE,SCOOB-II from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; NuLIoNbelonging to NuSpace Pte Ltd, Singapore, Galassia-2 from NationalUniversity of Singapore and ORB-12 STRIDER from Aliena Pte. Ltd., Singapore.ISRO said the PSLV-C56 rocket is configured in its core-alone mode --without the additional strap-on motors to give additional thrust during theinitial flight stage.It would launch the DS-SAR satellite into a Near-equatorial Orbit (NEO) at5 degrees inclination and 535 km altitude.The DS-SAR satellite is developed under a partnership between DSTA(representing the government of Singapore) and ST Engineering.Once deployed and operational, it will be used to support the satellite imagery requirements of various agencies within the government of Singapore.ST Engineering will use it for multi-modal and higher responsiveness imagery and geospatial services for their commercial customers.DS-SAR carries a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload developed by IsraelAerospace Industries (IAI). This allows the DS-SAR to provide for all-weather day and night coverage, and capable of imaging at one metre resolution at full polarimetry.On the other hand, the VELOX-AM, is a 23 kg technology demonstration microsatellite; ARCADE Atmospheric Coupling and Dynamics Explorer (ARCADE)is an experimental satellite; SCOOB-II, a 3U nanosatellite flying a technology demonstrator payload: NuLIoN by NuSpace, an advanced 3U nanosatellite enabling seamless IoT connectivity in both urban & remote locations; Galassia-2, a 3U nanosatellite that will be orbiting at low earth orbit and ORB-12 STRIDER satellite is developed under an International collaboration, ISRO added.The proposed rocket mission is the second one for ISRO in a space of about two weeks.On July 14, ISRO rocket LVM3 put into orbit the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.The NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) the commercial arm of the Department of Spacehas procured the PSLV-C56 rocket to launch the satellites from Singapore.Following this mission will be another interplanetary mission.And this time the Sun Mission for ISRO.The ISRO will be sending up its Aditya L1, a coronagraphy satellite, on a PSLV rocket to study the solar atmosphere towards the end of August.According to ISRO, the spacecraft will be placed into a halo orbit aroundthe first Lagrange point, L1, of the Sun-Earth system.The satellite around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuouslyviewing the Sun without occultation/eclipses.The Aditya L1 mission is slated to happen a couple of days after ISRO attempts to land on the lunar soil its lander that is being carried by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.After that will be the orbiting of Anwesha satellite and XPoSAT- a X-RayPolarimeter Satellite with the ISRO’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).It will be the country’s dedicated polarimetry mission to study the dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions, the government said.The launch of the Radar Imaging Satellite- RISAT-1B aboard the PSLV rocketis planned in the second half of 2023.The Indian space agency with its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle(GSLV) plans to orbit INSAT-3DS and two IDRSS (Indian Data Relay SatelliteSystem) satellites.These rocketing missions apart, ISRO will be testing the various systems that will go into its LVM3 rocket for the maiden human space mission.(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in).--IANSvj/shb

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