ISRO to launch nearly 30 satellites in March

New Delhi, Mar 05: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch an electronic intelligence satellite Emisat for the DRDO in March.

ISRO will also launch 28 third-party satellites and demonstrate its new technologies like three different orbits with a new variant of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket in March. He, however, did not give a specific date.

"It is a special mission for us. We will be using a PSLV rocket with four strap-on motors. Further, for the first time we will be trying to orbit the rocket at three different altitudes," K. Sivan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.

EMISAT is an advanced electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite jointly developed by ISRO-DRDO. It has a basic architecture similar to HySIS (based on Small Satellite Bus-2) which was first used in SARAL satellite.

In January, the space agency launched a defence imaging satellite Microsat R for the DRDO.

On January 24, the ISRO flew a PSLV with two strap-on motors while in March it will have four strap-on motors.

The space agency has two more PSLV variants -Core Alone, which does not have any strap-on motors and PSLV-XL, which is a larger rocket.

Further, ISRO will be launching two more defence satellites in July or August 2019 with its new rocket Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).