ISRO's PSLV-C38 places Cartosat-2 series, 30 co-passenger satellites in orbit

The 28-hour countdown for the launch began at 5.29 am on Thursday.

ISRO on Friday successfully launched Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 30 co-passenger satellites on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 09.29am. Around 16 minutes after lift-off, the rocket placed Cartosat-2 Series Satellite in orbit.

The 28-hour countdown for the launch began at 5.29 am on Thursday. Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 40th flight (PSLV-C38), would launch the 712 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation and 30 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 243 kg at lift-off into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

The total weight of all these satellites carried onboard PSLV-C38 is about 955 kg. The co-passenger satellites, comprise 29 Nano satellites from 14 countries - Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America besides a Nano satellite from India.

With the launch of today's Cartosat-2E, the total number of spacecraft missions launched by ISRO rose to 90.

What is the benefit of Cartosite-2 series?

According to ISRO, the imagery of Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

This remote sensing satellite is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series with the objective of providing high-resolution scene specific spot imagery, says ISRO.

(With agency inputs)