ISRO postpones its 31-satellites launch to Jan 12

The mission would be a combination of 28 nano satellites from foreign countries, including Finland and the US, one micro and nano satellite from India along with one Cartosat satellite.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which was supposed to launch 31 satellites in a single mission onboard PSLV on January 10, has now postponed it to January 12, said reports. The mission's main payload would be India's Cartosat-2 series earth observation satellite.

The mission would be a combination of 28 nanosatellites from foreign countries, including Finland and the US, one micro and nanosatellite from India along with one Cartosat satellite.

ISRO's Public Relations Director Devi Prasad Karnik said that the January 10 was just a tentative date announced earlier, adding that there has been no "delay" in the launch, reported IANS.

On August 31, India's mission to launch its backup navigation satellite IRNSS-1H on board PSLV-C39 ended in a failure after a technical fault on the final leg following a perfect launch. ISRO then said the heat shield did not separate on the final leg of the launch sequence and, as a result, IRNSS-1H got stuck in the fourth stage of the rocket.

According to ISRO, Cartosat-2 series satellite launch is a follow-on mission with the primary objective of providing high-resolution scene-specific spot imageries. It carries Panchromatic and Multi-spectral cameras operating in Time Delay Integration mode and is capable of delivering high-resolution data. This would be the third satellite in the Cartosat-2 series.

In February 2017, PSLV-C37 launched the first Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 103 co-passenger satellites in a single flight. In June, India's workhorse launch vehicle launched the second one along with 30 co-passenger satellites -- the 39th consecutively successful mission of PSLV.

OneIndia News