SRIHARIKOTA: “This is yet another milestone achieved by Isro. Of the 20 satellites that were launched, 17 are from other countries,” said Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar, lauding the new landmark achieved by his team in the record launch of 20 satellites in a single mission through PSLV-C34 rocket.
Mr Kumar said their current aim was to increase the participation of industry and academia in the sphere of space. “Of the 20 satellites, 17 were of commercial purpose. Thus, space can be a good area for business interests,” he said, adding the Isro was consistently working on reducing the cost of access to space.
On Wednesday, re-ignition of the engine was the unique experimentation for the PSLV launch. According to Dr K Sivan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, Trivandrum, the launches were made in different orbits to reduce the cost of launch operations.
“On specific demands from consumers and aiming to reduce the cost, after the satellites are launched, the four-stage engine is re-ignited,” Dr Sivan added.
“Today not only did we set a record by having launched a total of 113 satellites, team Isro made it by overcoming the complexities in mission planning and making this mission successful with a limited payload volume available,” said P. Kunhikrishnan, Director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.
“Against the estimated orbit length of 505 km, we achieved a precision of 507 km, which is again great news," he added. “We have 30+ satellites in the orbit, now the aim is to launch 70 more within the next five years. Multiple satellites launched by Isro are also propelled by industry requirements,” said S Rakesh, Isro Propulsion Complex .
MISSIONS ON THE RADAR
In the next mission of Isro, the C35, the SCATSAT and ALSAT, a similar re-ignition experiment, will be carried out, Kiran Kumar said.
SCATSAT would be carrying a scatterometer that would enable motion wind vector information to be generated, which would be extremely useful for weather monitoring and forecast.
According to him, GSAT18 was initially scheduled for July, but has now been put off to second half of September 2016. Isro was also trying to increase the launches to 12 - 18 per year. With Pakistan opting out of the SAARC satellite, it would now be launched in between December 2016 and March 2017, as the South East Asian satellite.
