HYDERABAD — The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch 10 satellites of different sizes in one go today. The PSLV-C9 launch vehicle, to be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, will carry the country’s latest remote sensing satellite Cartosat-2A, another Mini satellite IMPS-1 and eight foreign nano satellite.
The countdown for the launch began on Saturday. All arrangements are in place for the launch at 9.23am today. While Cartosat, meant for the mapping, is 690kg in weight, the mini remote sensing satellite weighs only 83 kgs. The eight nano satellites, belonging to foreign countries, put together, weigh only 50 kgs. Two of the nano satellites belong to Japan, two each belong to Germany and Toronto University, Canada. The other satellites are from Denmark and the Netherlands.
These small satellites have been developed on experimental basis by using the nano technology for the first time. The 44 metre long PSLV-C9 rocket, produced in the country weighs 230 tonnes. The Isro officials are treating the launch of this rocket as landmark event because of the large number of payloads belonging to different countries. Isro officials say that it would be a very complicated and sensitive operation because different satellites will have to be placed in different orbits.
The earlier record of carrying the maximum number of satellites was set by PSLV-C7 launched in January last year. It carried four satellites including India’s own Cartosat-2, space capsule recovery experiment vehicle and one satellite each of Argentina and Indonesia.
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