New Delhi: In a remarkable achievement for India’s space exploration, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved a successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on its 56th mission, carrying seven foreign satellites.
The PSLV-C56 mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in the early hours of Sunday, making it the second major launch by ISRO in just two weeks.
The primary payload of the PSLV-C56 mission was the DS-SAR satellite, equipped with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system. This advanced radar technology enables the creation of two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects. The DS-SAR satellite was jointly developed by DSTA, representing the Government of Singapore, and ST Engineering. It is designed to meet the imagery requirements of various Singaporean government agencies and ST Engineering’s commercial clients. The launch was executed by ISRO under a contract with New Space India Limited (NSIL). This launch also marks the 431st foreign satellite launched from India by ISRO.
Following the highly anticipated launch of Chandrayaan-3 earlier this month, ISRO successfully deployed PSLV-C56, carrying Singapore’s DS-SAR along with six co-passenger satellites from Sriharikota, located about 135 km from Chennai, at 6:30 AM on July 30th.
ISRO announced the success of the mission via a tweet, stating, “The mission is successfully accomplished. The PSLV-C56 vehicle launched all seven satellites precisely into their intended orbits.”
Lift-off images.
More in our Instagram account isro.dos pic.twitter.com/dAUmD8mNoN— ISRO (@isro) July 30, 2023
PSLV-C56 is a dedicated mission of NewSpace India Ltd, which serves as the commercial arm of ISRO.
ISRO described PSLV as the “workhorse of ISRO” due to its consistent track record of deploying various satellites into low Earth orbits.
The Indian High Commission in Singapore also celebrated the launch, highlighting the significance of the space partnership between the two countries. They tweeted, “India-Singapore space partnership marks another milestone with the launch of seven Singaporean satellites by Indian space agency ISRO today.”
The DS-SAR satellite, developed under the collaboration between DSTA (representing the Government of Singapore) and ST Engineering, will cater to the satellite imagery requirements of Singaporean government agencies. Additionally, ST Engineering will utilise the satellite to provide multi-modal and highly responsive imagery and geospatial services to their commercial customers. DS-SAR is equipped with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), enabling it to perform all-weather, day and night imaging at a resolution of 1m with full polarimetry capability, as stated by ISRO.
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