ISRO successfully launches its 100th satellite

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday successfully launched its 100th satellite along with 30 others in two different orbits in a single mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here.

The space agency's workhorse rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) placed all the 31 satellites including its main payload Cartosat-2 Series into its respective orbit after blasting off at 9:29 am from the first launch pad of the spaceport. The successful launch comes after the ISRO's backup navigation spacecraft IRNSS-1H ended in a failure in August last year.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Congress president Rahul Gandhi congratulated ISRO and its scientists on the successful launch of the satellites.

Of the 31 satellites, three are Indian and the rest are from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Finland, and South Korea. The Indian satellites include the 710-kg Cartosat-2 series for Earth observation as the primary satellite of the mission, along with co-passenger payloads, including a 100-kg microsatellite and a 10-kg nanosatellite.

ISRO also demonstrated the PSLV's capability to place multiple rockets in multiple orbits in a single mission. Seventeen minutes after the lift-off, the rocked injected the Cartosat-2 Satellite into the polar sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 510 km. In the next seven minutes, it placed 29 satellites as it moved up to the altitude of 519 km. The Indian microsatellite would be orbited after about 90 minutes following the re-ignition of the fourth stage (following placement of the 30th satellite in its orbit), ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar said.

The Cartosat-2 remote-sensing satellite which is equipped with a Panchromatic Camera and a high-resolution multi-spectral instrument will prove to be a shot-in-the-arm for India's military surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

A visibly relieved Kiran Kumar, who is on his final mission as the chief of the space agency, said he was happy to provide Cartosat 2 Series as a new year gift for the country. "ISRO is starting 2018 with the successful launch... all customer satellites (besides Cartosat and nanosat) released and the microsat after one hour. So far Cartosat performance is satisfactory," he said at the mission control room. Referring to the previous launch, he said it had heat shield problem and an ISRO committee had addressed it and taken steps to ensure the vehicle was 'robust'.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Director K Sivan, who has been named the successor to Kumar, noted that many international customers approached the ISRO for the launch immediately after the PSLV-C39 failure and it showed the confidence that they have in the agency's workhorse launch vehicle. "We will be definitely meeting their expectations in the future also. This mission is definitely showing the green flag for the exciting high profile missions in 2018 such as the Chandryaan 2, GSLV MK 3 then GSAT-11," he said.

Satish Dhawan Space Centre director P Kunhikrishnan said the mission was an excellent tribute to chairman AS Kiran Kumar and a welcome to chairman-designate K Sivan.