By Venkatachari Jagannathan, IANS,
Chennai : One of the three “core alone” Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) to blast off Monday from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh will carry the heaviest luggage – 824 kg – comprising the remote sensing Cartosat-2A satellite, the Indian Mini Satellite and eight nano
satellites.
According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), core alone configuration means the main/core PSLV rocket minus the hugging six strap-on booster motors that powers the first stage.
“The 230 tonne rocket (PSLV-C9) will carry a luggage of 824 kg. The two earlier core alone PSLVs carried a payload of 352 kg and 535 kg,” S. Satish, director of publications and public relations at ISRO, told IANS.
While the main purpose of the earlier two rockets was to carry third party satellites and earn handsome carriage fee for ISRO, the PSLV-C9 is mainly designed to carry remote sensing satellite Cartosat-2A weighing 690 kg and the 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite.
The two Indian satellites will have eight overseas co-passengers but much smaller in size.
The eight nano satellites made by overseas research institutions weigh just 51 kg and the carriage fee is not a significant figure.
The core alone PSLV costs anything between Rs.650-700 million while the normal PSLV would cost around Rs.800 million.
The Cartosat2A and the mini satellite cost ISRO around Rs.2 billion and Rs.200 million respectively.
In terms of the number of satellites carried by a single rocket, PSLV-C9 with 10 satellites will be second to a Russian rocket that delivered 16 in the outer space in April last year.
“The Russian rocket carried a payload of around 300 kg, whereas our rocket will be carrying much higher than that,” added Satish.
According to him, all the 10 satellites will be offloaded 635 km into the polar sun synchronous orbit (SSO) within 16 minutes after blast off at 9.23 a.m. Monday.
Speaking about the purpose of Cartosat-2A, Satish said: “The 690 kg Cartosat-2A is the 13th Indian Remote Sensing satellite. The data from the satellite will find applications in urban and rural infrastructure development and management as well as land information systems and geographical information system.”
The satellite carries an advanced panchromatic camera that can take pictures with a spatial resolution of about one metre and can cover a land strip of 9.6 km.
On the other hand the mini satellite incorporates many new technologies and has miniaturised sub-systems apart from multi and high spectral cameras.