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Archana Venkat

India's most precise launch so far, says ISRO chief

Sriharikota (AP) , Jan. 10

Six months after the failure of GSLV-F02, ISRO's polar satellite launch vehicle PSLV-C7 blazed through the skies today in what was described as a prefect textbook launch by Chairman Mr G. Madhavan Nair.

"After the GLSV failure, we have been very stringent with quality procedures such as check out and calibration and it has paid off with today's accurately executed launch. I challenge any other country to better this launch," he told newspersons after the successful launch of four satellites carried by the PSLV-C7 from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR at Sriharikota, 80 km north of Chennai.

He also said that this was India's most precise launch so far, with just two km deviation from the planned 635-km orbit height and 0.01 degree deviation from the planned 97.90-degree orbit inclination. ISRO's next launch is an INSAT-4B satellite that will take off from Kourou in French Guyana in March this year in co-operation with the Ariane space agency.

It is likely to be followed by the PSLV launch of Italian satellite, Agile, said Mr Nair.

Cryogenic engine

ISRO also plans to introduce its indigenous cryogenic engine in the GSLV launch planned at the end of this year.

"Right now we are in the final phase of development and preparing for the next test level."

Today's PSLV-C7 launch, the ninth consecutively successful one for ISRO, was a treat to watch as the clear blue skies allowed one to see, with naked eye, up to the first stage of payload separation while the launch vehicle ascended towards space at a speed of about six km per second.

Cartosat-2, India's second earth imaging satellite (weighing 620 kg) was the first to be put in orbit, 931.8 seconds after the take-off at 9.23 a.m. With this launch, India will compete with US satellite Ikonos in producing high spatial resolution images.

Cartosat-2

Cartosat-2 can produce images of up to 80 cm in resolution, compared to the one m offered by Ikonos.

In the past, India has been buying images from Ikonos at about $20 per sq m of imagery.

With Cartosat-2 offering better resolution at twenty times lower cost per sq m of imagery, buying images from Ikonos is likely to decline in future, said ISRO officials.

Currently, India buys images worth about Rs 2 crore a year from Ikonos.

Cartosat-2 would propel more domestic users to move from Ikonos, officials said.

Eyes imagery market

According to Mr Nair, many foreign countries had expressed interest to buy imagery from Cartosat-2.

"We would like to capture a good chunk of the imagery market through Cartosat-2." The price for buying this imagery is yet to be fixed, he added.

Imagery from Cartosat-2 is likely to see demand in areas such as cadastral mapping, mapping of urban infrastructure including internal roads and urban complexes and transport system planning besides monitoring coastal land use.

Today's mission also launched the 550 kg space capsule recovery experiment (SRE-1), intended for performing and recovering experiments in micro-gravity conditions. This is the first attempt by ISRO to bring back a capsule from space to earth. If successful, it would be a landmark technological advancement, said Mr Nair.

SRE-1 was launched 1,026.3 seconds after take-off and will be in orbit for 13-30 days, performing metallurgical and biomimetic experiments.

The mission also launched two other satellites - Indonesia 's 56 kg LAPAN-TUBSAT, a control systems technology demonstrator satellite, and Argentina's PEHUENSAT-1, a six kg nano satellite to be used for educational, technological and scientific purposes. The mission cost about Rs 290 crore - Rs 180 crore for building the Cartosat-2, Rs 30 crore for SRE-1 and Rs 80 crore for the PSLV, according to Mr Nair.

The cost of launching the foreign satellites was between $8,000 and $10,000 per kg of payload, he added.

Hardware for the completely indigenous launch was built at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO Inertial Systems Unit and Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.

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