PSLV to launch Cartosat-2 with 30 nano satellites on 23 June

Chennai: Indian Space Research Organisation will launch the Earth observation Cartosat-2 series satellite and 30 nano satellites on Friday morning 9.29 a.m.
Isro’s PSLV-C38 rocket will launch these satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The 28-hour countdown for the mission will start on Thursday morning at 5.29 a.m.

Isro’s Mission Readiness Review Committee and Launch Authorisation Board have cleared the launch on Wednesday.

Cartosat-2series satellite.

In it’s 40th flight, the PSLV rocket, will carry the 712 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite and co-passenger satellites together weighing about 243 kg into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

The 29 co-passenger nanosatellites are from 14 countries Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and the United States of America and one nanosatellite from India.

These foreign nano satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangement between Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of Isro and International customers.

Cartosat-2 series satellite, the primary satellite of the mission is a remote sensing satellite. It is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series with the objective of providing high-resolution scene-specific spot imagery.

The imageries from Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

Apart from taking pictures, it can also record videos from the sky. The pictures and videos would be helpful in a wide range of activities including military and civil planning.