Just two weeks after successfully launching India’s heaviest rocket, the GSLV Mk-III or Baahubali, ISRO is all set to launch another an earth observation satellite—the Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS)—at 09:57 AM on Thursday, 29 November 2018.
Here are 5 amazing facts you should know about the launcher which, in addition to Indian satellites, will also carry satellites from other countries:
1. Weighing 380 kg, the HysIS will be launched by the Indian rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle Core Alone Variant (PSLV-C43). Along with this, it will launch 30 overseas satellites which combined, weigh 261.5 kg. One of these is a microsatellite and the other 29 will be nanosatellites.
2. The countries launching their satellites are Australia, Canada, Columbia, Finland, Malaysia, Netherlands, Spain and the United States of America.
All countries except for the USA will launch one satellite each. The USA will launch 23.
“Colombia has chosen to get its satellite launched by ISRO for the first time. This launch has been commercially contracted through Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of ISRO,” an official told Financial Express.
3. ISRO said that the primary goal of the HysIS will be to study the earth’s surface in visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It will enable the distinct identification of material, objects and processes on the Earth by reading the spectrum for every pixel of a scene from space.
4. PSLV-CA is set for its 13th mission and 45th flight on 29 November 2018, and the rocket will place the satellites in two different satellites.
MUST WATCH –
The launch of #PSLVC43 carrying earth observation satellite HysIS along with 30 international customer satellites from 8 Countries – LIVE – 29th November at 9:30 am on @DDNational & LIVE-STREAM on https://t.co/OFUmYgY4Ws @isro pic.twitter.com/Xbzaa1mnTR— Doordarshan National (@DDNational) November 28, 2018
Sources from ISRO have said that the HysIS, built around ISRO’s Mini-Satellite-2 (IMS-2) bus, will be the primary satellite of PSLV-C43. “HysIS is an earth observation satellite developed by ISRO. It is the primary satellite of the PSLV-C43 mission. The satellite will be placed in 636 km polar sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) with an inclination of 97.957 deg. The mission life of the satellite is 5 years,” ISRO explained.
You may also like: These ISRO Photos of the GSAT-29 Launch Will Leave You Awestruck!
5. 17 minutes after the launch, PSLV will place the HysIS in the 636-km polar sun-synchronous orbit. Later, it will be brought to a lower altitude of about 503 km. All the satellites from the eight countries will be placed in a 504 km orbit. The entire mission is expected to be completed in about 112 minutes after the liftoff.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
Feature image source: ISRO/ Facebook.
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