India launches five satellites

 

Three months after the failure of the first GSLV launch vehicle equipped with an Indian-made cryogenic engine, India is once again enjoying success thanks to a safe bet in the shape of its small launch vehicle, PSLV. On Monday 12 July at 9:22am local time (5:52am in continental Europe), PSLV-C15 was launched from the Satish Dawan Space Centre on the island of Sriharikota, and put a payload of five satellites into sun-synchronous orbit.  The satellites included the Indian observation satellite Cartosat 2B, the Algerian observation satellite AlSat 2A (built in Toulouse by Astrium), the Studsat picosatellite (the 1^st satellite designed by Indian students) and two nanosatellites,  the Norwegian satellite AISSat 1 (for monitoring ships) and the Swiss satellite TIsat 1 (for the University of Ticino).

Liftoff of PSLV-C15, on 12 July 2010. Credit: ISRO.

At the same time, the cause of the GSLV-D3 launch failure on 15 April 2010 has been identified as a malfunction in the liquid hydrogen turbo pump supplying the new motor developed by India to replace the Russian stages which equipped the first GSLV models. The return to flight of the new version is already scheduled for next year.

Based on the CNES Myriade platform, AISat 2A is capable of supplying images with a resolution of 2.5m in black and white and 10m in colour. Credit: Astrium, F. Jama

ISRO press release

Astrium press release