The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced the successful completion of the mission to launch the EOS-04 Earth remote sensing satellite and two cubesats into sun-synchronous orbit. The delivery was carried out using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C52 launch vehicle.
The launch of the rocket took place at 03:29 Moscow time from the launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Center, which is located in the state of Andhra Pradesh. At 03:48, the payload was launched into the planned orbit at an altitude of 529 km from the Earth's surface.
The EOS-04 is designed to provide high quality images of the Earth under various weather conditions. For these purposes, the satellite uses a radar. The EOS-04, which weighs 1.71 tons, will be used in agriculture and forestry, hydrology, flood mapping and soil moisture tracking. The device was developed at the UR Rao satellite center in Bangalore. The service life of the satellite is 10 years.
The booster also delivered into orbit the INSPIREsat-1 research cubesat, which was developed by scientists from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology together with researchers from the University of Colorado. The device will study changes in the Earth's ionosphere and thermal processes in the solar corona.
The third device launched by PSLV C52 was the INS-2TD demonstration satellite. Using the apparatus, scientists intend to test technologies for the upcoming joint satellite of India and Bhutan INS-2B. We are talking about thermal photography, showing changes in the temperature of the Earth during the day.
At the beginning of the month, India announced that it would launch the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander in August 2022. The launch of the mission was supposed to take place two years ago, but the flight was postponed due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The space organization piloted Chandrayaan 2 in 2019, but the module and the onboard rover made an unsuccessful landing on the moon, colliding with the surface of the satellite. India will become the fourth country to make a soft landing on a satellite, after Russia, the United States and China, if the delivery of Chandrayaan-3 is successful.
At the beginning of the year, ISRO chairman Kailasawadivu Sivan said that 2021 was a lost year for the organization. He explained his words by a small number of launches. Last year, ISRO made only two launches in February and August. However, the last launch, in which the launch vehicle delivered geosynchronous satellites into orbit, failed because the upper stage failed.
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