ISRO to launches Indo-French satellite

Bangalore, Sept 11: Indian Space Reasearh Organization on Satureday, Sept 10 said that the launch date for Indo-French "Megha-Tropiques" satellite mission to study the tropical climate has been scheduled to October 12, 2011.

The satellite will be launched from Sriharikota spaceport as said by ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan and also Secretary in the department of space and space commission.

The Megha-Tropiques craft has undergone all ground test which has a weight of 1,000 kgs at Bangalore ISRO headquarters on Sept 10.The craft would launched by India's workhorse rocket.The Satellite has a five year of life and will probe the contribution of water cycle in the tropical atmosphere to climate dynamics.

"Its quite different from the remote sensing satellite or earth observation satellite that we have made so far" and it will benefit the entire group of climate researchers" as said by Radhakrishnan.

The Megha-Tropiques craft has manufactured at a cost of Rs 80 crore with equivalent contribution from ISRO and French Space Agency known as Centre National d'Etudes Spaciales (CNES) said by ISRO official.The spacecraft would carry three playloads, two by CNES and one jointly by ISRO and CNES.

OneIndia News