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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday, 27 November, successfully injected Cartosat-3 and 13 US nano-satellites into the orbit following their launch aboard the PSLV-C47 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
The launch took place following a 26-hour countdown which started at 7:28 am on Tuesday.
Following the launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted congratulating ISRO and saying the space organisation has made the country proud.
The CARTOSAT-3 satellite, ninth in the series, lifted off from the second launch pad at Sriharikota's spaceport about 120 kms from Chennai at 09:28 am.
PSLV-C47, on its 49th mission, would carry CARTOSAT-3 along with 13 commercial nano-satellites from the United States.
CARTOSAT-3 is a third-generation agile advanced satellite with high resolution-imaging capability.
CARTOSAT-3, India's most complex and advanced earth imaging satellite built so far, was placed into orbit 17 minutes and 46 seconds after liftoff. It's the next mission after Chandrayaan-2, where the lander crashed while making a soft descent on the lunar surface on 7 September.
All the 13 nano-satellites from the US were released into the orbit at 26 minutes and 56 seconds after liftoff, ISRO said.
ISRO Chairman K Sivan and other scientists broke into cheers as the earth imaging and mapping satellite was injected precisely into the desired orbit.
Later, speaking from the Mission Control Centre, Sivan said, “I am extremely happy to declare that PSLV-C47 precisely injected CARTOSAT-3 and 13 customer satellites successfully in the desired orbit of 509 kms.”
"CARTOSAT-3 is India's highest resolution civilian satellite, and the most complex and advanced earth obvservation satellite ISRO has built so far," he said.
He congratulated the teams behind both the satellite as well as the launch vehicle, besides various review teams and industry partners involved in the mission.
On future missions, the ISRO chief said, "Our hands are full," with 13 missions slated until March 2020.
"They combine some six launch vehicle missions and seven satellite missions," he said.
With an overall mass of 1,625kgs, CARTOSAT-3 would address the increasing demands for large-scale urban planning, rural resource and infrastructure development, coastal land use and land cover.
PSLV-C47 is the 21st flight of PSLV in the 'XL' configuration (with six solid strap-on motors), ISRO said.
The 13 commercial nano-satellites from the US are being carried as part of the commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL), Department of Space.
Among the 13 nano-satellites are FLOCK-4P – which comprise 12 of them – with a mission objective of observing earth, and one satellite named MESHBED, whose mission objective is communication test bed.
ISRO said Wednesday's launch would be the 74th launch vehicle mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
The mission life of CARTOSAT-3 is five years.
The launch of CARTOSAT-3 and 13 other commercial nano-satellites follows ISRO's moon mission Chandrayaan-2 on 22 July, which failed to manage a soft landing on the moon, and would have been the country's first had it been successful.
While the Orbiter continues to revolve around the moon, the lander 'Vikram' and rover 'Pragyan' were rendered non-functional after a hard-landing on the lunar surface on 7 September.
(With inputs from PTI)
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