The 59-hour countdown for the launch of six Singapore satellites by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on board its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has began in from Sriharikota. The launch is scheduled at 6:00 pm on December 16, at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the spaceport of Sriharikota. The Mission Readiness Review committee and Launch Authorisation Board have cleared the countdown.

ISRO’s trusted workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on its 32nd flight would launch the six satellites into a 550-km circular orbit inclined at 15 degrees to the equator. Of the six satellites, TeLEOS-1 is the primary satellite weighing 400kg whereas the other five satellites include two micro-satellites and three nano-satellites. TeLEOS-1 is the first Singapore commercial earth observation satellite and would be launched into a low Earth orbit for “remote sensing” applications.

To be launched from the first launch pad, this is the 11th flight of PSLV in ‘core-alone’ configuration without the use of solid strap-on motors. Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of ISRO, has provided launch services in PSLV for 51 customer satellites from 20 countries.

ISRO

• ISRO was formed on Independence day, 1969 by Dr.Vikram Sarabhai.
• SLV-3 was India’s first indigenous satellite launch vehicle and A.P.J. Abdum Kalam was the director of the project.
• ISRO also developed Bhuvan, a web-based 3D satellite imagery tool which is the Indian incarnation of Google Earth.
• ISRO’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan I was approximately amounted to 390 crore rupees which is 8-9 times lesser than the expense of similar mission by NASA.
• ISRO is one of the six space agencies in the world with the capability to build and launch satellites from its own soil.

AS Kiran Kumar is the current Chairman of ISRO