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On 1 April, India will launch an electronic intelligence satellite Emisat for the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) along with 28 third-party satellites and also demonstrate its new technologies like three different orbits with a new variant of PSLV rocket, ISRO said on Saturday, 23 March.
According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a new variant of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket will first put the 436 kg Emisat into a 749 km orbit.
This will be followed by bringing the rocket down further to 485 km when the fourth stage/engine will turn into a payload platform carrying three experimental payloads: (a) Automatic Identification System (AIS) from ISRO for Maritime satellite applications capturing messages transmitted from ships (b) Automatic Packet Repeating System (APRS) from AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation), India – to assist amateur radio operators in tracking and monitoring position data, and (c) Advanced Retarding Potential Analyser for Ionospheric Studies (ARIS) from Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) – for the structural and compositional studies of ionosphere, the space agency said.
The whole flight sequence will take about 180 minutes from the rocket's lift off slated at 9:30 am on 1 April.
The 28 international customer satellites – (24 from US, 2 from Lithuania and one each from Spain and Switzerland) – will weigh about 220 kg.
The PSLV is a four-stage engine expendable rocket with alternating solid and liquid fuel.
In its normal configuration, the rocket will have six strap-on motors hugging the rocket's first stage.
On 24 January, the ISRO flew a PSLV with two strap-on motors while in March, it had four strap-on motors.
The Indian space agency also has two more PSLV variants, viz Core Alone (without any strap-on motors) and the larger PSLV-XL.
The ISRO selects the kind of rocket to be used based on the weight of satellites it carries.
In January, the space agency launched a defence imaging satellite Microsat R for the DRDO.
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