Bravo! ISRO You Did It Again
Once again ISRO brought pride to the nation, by launching the ninth satellite back to back in the year 2016. By making successive launches successful in september ISRO successfully places remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2A in orbit on 7th december 2016. The ISRO launch, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, occurred on schedule at 10:24 IST (04:54 UTC) from the center’s First Launch Pad. Between 1994 and 2016, the PSLV has launched a total of 121 satellites, of which 79 satellites are from abroad and 42 are Indian satellites.
1. ISRO began 2016 with a salvo of three launches to complete the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), a constellation of geosynchronous navigation satellites. Made by PSLV-XL rockets, these launches took place in January, March and April. A further PSLV-XL launch in June deployed the Cartosat 2C reconnaissance satellite along with a cluster of secondary payloads.
2. Early September saw the GSLV Mk.II rocket record a third consecutive successful launch, deploying the INSAT-3DR communications satellite. India’s most recent launch, at the end of September, used a PSLV-G rocket to deploy the SCATSAT-1 ocean research satellite and seven small satellites.
3. Resourcesat-2A has been built to similar specifications as Resourcesat-2, and carries the same instrumentation as both Resourcesat-2 and Resourcesat-1 before it. The new satellite provides the same services as the original RESOURCESAT-1, but was also designed to “provide data with enhanced multispectral and spatial coverage”. Compared to Resourcesat-1, LISS-4 multispectral swath has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs.
4. The primary imaging payload is the Linear Imaging Self Scanner 4 (LISS-4), a high-resolution visible and near-infrared camera with a resolution of 5.8 meters (19 feet).
5. The three cameras of different resolution on the spacecraft will give regular micro and macro information on land and water bodies below, farm lands and crop extent, forests, mineral deposits, coastal information, rural and urban spreads besides helping in disaster management.
6. A safe and remote fuel filling system that reduces countdown by a day and makes it safe for engineers handling propellants has been introduced.
7. For the current flight, the four-stage rocket was configured in the XL version with six small strap-on motors.
8. Resourcesat-2A also carries two solid state recorders with a capacity of 200 Giga Bits, each to store the images taken by its cameras which can be read out later to ground stations, it added.
9. The spacecraft mass is around 1,200 kg with a power generation capacity of 1,250 W and a mission life of five years.
10. With 36 successful launches, PSLV has emerged as the workhorse launch vehicle of ISRO and is offered for launching satellites for international customers.