India’s ISRO launches EMISAT and 28 other satellites

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched the EMISAT and 28 other nano satellites from international customers.

Launched aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C45), the flight was carried out from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR in Sriharikota.

The flight was PSLV-C45 rocket’s 47th mission and the satellites were placed into different orbits.

Designed for electromagnetic spectrum measurement, the EMISAT is the electronic intelligence satellite developed by India’s Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO).

The 436kg satellite was developed based around ISRO’s Mini Satellite-2 bus and injected into a 748km Sun-synchronous polar orbit.

It will be brought to its final operational configuration in the next few days.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated ISRO scientists on the successful satellite launches.

ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan said: “Today’s PSLV mission was unique in several ways. It was a four strap-on new variant, the vehicle achieved three different orbits and for the first time the PS4 stage is powered by solar panels.”

PS4 carried several payloads that include ISRO’s automatic identification system, AMSAT’s automatic packet repeating system, and the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology’s advanced retarding potential analyser for ionospheric studies.

Weighing a total of 220kg, the 28 international customer satellites were placed into a Sun-synchronous orbit at a 504km height.

Launched as part of commercial arrangements, two of the foreign satellites are from Lithuania, one each from Spain and Switzerland, and the remaining 24 from the US.

A total of 46 national satellites, ten satellites built by Indian Universities’ students and 297 international customer satellites have so far been launched by PSLV.

Next month, PSLV-C46 will launch the RISAT-2B satellite.