India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its twenty third flight (PSLV - C20), launched the Indo-French satellite SARAL along with ...
India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its twenty third flight (PSLV - C20), launched the Indo-French satellite SARAL along with six commercial payloads from Canada, Austria, Denmark and UK into a 785 km polar sun synchronous orbit inclined at an angle of 98.538 deg to the equator.
PSLV - C20 was launched today from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR), Sriharikota.
The 407 kg, SARAL is the 56 th satellite to be launched by PSLV. The six payloads from abroad together have a lift-off mass of 259.5 kg.
PSLV has an impeccable record of 21 consecutive successful flights. This is the ninth time ISRO is using the ‘core alone’ variant of the rocket.
The other six satellites the PSLV-C20 carried are two Canadian satellite NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Space Surveillance Satellite), the world’s first space telescope designed by Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and Sapphire satellite built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), BRITE and UniBRITE (both Austria), STRaND-1 (Britain) and AAUSAT (Denmark).
The Satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA (SARAL) is a joint Indo-French satellite mission for oceanographic studies. SARAL will perform altimetric measurements designed to study ocean circulation and sea surface elevation. The payloads of SARAL are:
Ka band Altimeter, ALTIKA - built by the French National Space Agency CNES. The payload is intended for oceanographic applications, operates at 35.75 Giga Hertz.
ARGOS Data Collection System - built by the French National Space Agency CNES. ARGOS contributes to the development and operational implementation of the global ARGOS Data Collection System. It will collect a variety of data from ocean buoys to transmit the same to the ARGOS Ground Segment for subsequent processing and distribution.
Solid State C-band Transponder (SCBT) is from ISRO and intended for ground RADAR calibration. It is a continuation of such suppport provided by C-Band Transponders flown in the earlier IRS-P3 and IRS-P5 missions.
The payloads of SARAL are accommodated in the Indian Mini Satellite-2 bus, which is built by ISRO.
SARAL Applications
SARAL data products will be useful for operational as well as research user communities in many fields like
*. Marine meteorology and sea state forecasting
*. Operational oceanography
*. Seasonal forecasting
*. Climate monitoring
*. Ocean, earth system and climate research
*. Continental ice studies
*. Protection of biodiversity
*. Managment and protection of marine ecosystem
*. Environmental monitoring
*. Improvement of maritime security
It is powered by a Solar Array generating 906 W and 46.8 Ampere-hour Lithium-ion battery.
It has a 32Gb data storage capacity. It has a 5 years mission life.
The STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite Demonstrator) is the world’s first ‘smart phone satellite’ carrying Google Nexus One phone running on Android operating system.
The 6.5 kg satellite is a Britain mission, jointly developed by the University of Surrey’s Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
The phone will run several applications, including collection of data and take pictures of the earth with its camera.
Once all the satellites’ own operating systems have been checked out, key system functions will be transferred to the phone’s components to take control and operate the satellite, said SSTL on its website.
According to the CPA, the satellite NEOSSat will detect and track asteroids and satellites circling the globe every 100 minutes and scanning space near the Sun to pinpoint otherwise almost invisible asteroids.
The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space objects, including space debris.
On the other hand, Sapphire will look for resident space objects that include functioning satellites and space debris circling between 6,000 km and 40,000 km above the earth.
