Isro

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched six Singapore satellites from the launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.

A PSLV-C29 rocket lifted off carrying all six satellites, including a 400kg earth observation satellite called TeLEOS-1, two micro-satellites and three nano-satellites.

The six satellites together weighed 624kg at lift-off. Following the launch, all satellites were placed into orbit at 549km altitude, inclined 15° towards the equator.

TeLEOS-1 was placed into its orbit 18 minutes and12 seconds after lift-off. After deploying TeLEOS-1, placement of the other five satellites was completed over the following three minutes.

This is the 32nd flight of PSLV and 11th flight of the launch vehicle in core-alone configuration, which has been performed without the use of solid strap-on motors.

"Despite the weather conditions, the team has been able to pull off a perfect launch."

ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar was quoted by Business Standard saying: "I congratulate the entire ISRO team for the wonderful job."

The launch was the result of an agreement signed between Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO, and Singapore-based ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems).

Satish Dhawan Space Centre director P Kunhikrishnan was quoted by The Times of India saying: "There was rainfall over the region. Despite the weather conditions, the team has been able to pull off a perfect launch."

Antrix has launched more than 55 foreign satellites from 20 countries including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Korea.

The latest launch has increased ISRO’s total number of foreign satellite launches to 57.

Image: ISRO’s PSLV launches six Singapore satellites into orbit. Photo: courtesy of ISRO.