PSLV-C42 Mission

• The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 44th flight put into orbit two UK earth observation satellites in a textbook launch.

About Satellites:

• Both the satellites together weighed about 889 kg, and the commercial launch was carried out under an arrangement between Surrey Satellite Technologies Limited (SSTL) and Isro’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited.
• NovaSAR is an S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite intended for forest mapping, land use and ice cover monitoring, flood and disaster monitoring.
• Its SAR payload has a dedicated maritime mode designed with a very wide swath area (400-km) to enable the monitoring of the marine environment, and will provide direct radar ship detection information simultaneously with AIS ship tracking data to assist with the identification and tracking of sea-going vessels.
• S1-4 is a high resolution Optical Earth Observation Satellite, used for surveying resources, environment monitoring, urban management and for the disaster monitoring.
• The PSLV-C42, was only the third launch of PSLV after the rare failure it encountered in August last year due to problems in the heat shield. It took off at 10.08pm, the first stage separated about two minutes after that, while the fourth state separated nearly 17 minutes after the take off. The satellites separated 17.44 minutes after the launch before being placed in the desired Sun Synchronous orbit, about 583 km away.
• This is Isro’s first dedicated commercial launch in several months, and Antrix hopes to increase the frequency of such missions in the future, with the help from industry. While the space agency’s commercial arm does not give out mission-specific earnings, in the three years between April 2015 and March 2018, it earned Rs 5,600 crore.

About PSLV:

• PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) is an indigenously-developed expendable launch system of the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). It comes in the category of medium-lift launchers with a reach up to various orbits, including the Geo Synchronous Transfer Orbit, Lower Earth Orbit, and Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit. All the operations of PSLV are controlled from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, east coast, India.
• PSLV has a four-stage system comprising a combination of solid and liquid-fuelled rocket stages. The first stage at the very bottom is solid fuelled having six strap-on solid rocket boosters wrapped around it. Second stage is liquid fuelled whereas the third stage has a solid fuelled rocket motor. At the fourth stage, the launcher uses a liquid propellant to boost in the outer space.