PSLV-C45 successfully injects EMISAT into sun-synchronous polar orbit

India is all set to launch on Monday the EMISAT satellite along with 28 nano satellites of global customers from Sriharikota, a mission which would witness the ISRO placing payloads in three orbits and conducting space experiments for the first time.

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the countdown began at 6.27 am on Sunday for the launch on board ISRO’s third generation workhorse PSLV, in its 47th flight.

The latest PSLV launch comes amid the rising concerns over the space debris created by the ASAT missile launch during the ‘Mission Shakti’. When the PSLV is launched from Sriharikota, it will have to traverse through that debris, thereby creating a risk of collision.

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Last week, India successfully fired a rocket that brought down one of its own satellites to test its A-SAT capabilities. The ‘Mission Shakti’ generated 250-270 objects of debris in the space, some 300 km above the Earth.

Experts believe that the debris created in the space by the ASAT test would certainly hinder the future launches at least for the next several weeks.

The four-stage PSLV-C45 will blast off from the second launch pad at the spaceport of Sriharikota at 9.27 am today. The whole flight sequence will take about 180 minutes.

In Monday's mission, ISRO scientists would place the satellites and payloads in three different orbits, a first for the agency.

After injecting the 436 kg primary satellite EMISAT, intended for electromagnetic spectrum measurement, at around 17 minutes from lift off in a 749 km orbit, they would restart the fourth stage again.

During this initiative, all the other 28 customer satellites, totally weighing about 220 kgs, would be released by lowering the fourth state to around 504 kms orbit.

Again, the fourth stage would be reignited and further lowered to 485 kms orbit to serve as an orbital platform for carrying out space borne experimentations for the first time in ISRO's history.

According to ISRO, this is the first time it has been envisaged to provide a micro-gravity environment for research organisations and academic institutes to perform experiments.