In one go, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday launched 20 satellites. They include two student satellites from Indian universities and 17 of four foreign countries.
A PSLV C-34 rocket lifted off at 9.25 a.m. from the Second Launch Pad in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and 16 minutes later placed a Cartosat-2 Series satellite about 505 km above the Earth's orbit. In the next 10 minutes, the remaining satellites were placed in the intended orbits.
Soon after the launch, ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar said, "With this mission, we have launched the current generation Earth observation satellite along with 17 satellites from foreign countries."
atish Dhawan Space Centre Director P. Kunhikrishnan said it was a "major milestone" for ISRO to launch 20 satellites in a single mission.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the space agency, describing the launch as an “monumental” accomplishment.
“20 satellites in a go! @isro continues to break new barriers. Hearty congratulations to our scientists on the monumental accomplishment’, he said on Twitter.
The 725.5 kg Cartosat-2 would be used for Earth observation. According to ISRO, the imagery sent by the satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation and utility management like road networking.
It may be recalled that ISRO, in 2008, launched 10 satellites in a single rocket. On April 28, 2008, PSLV-C9 launched a Remote Sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A along with Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) and eight nanosatellites.
In 2014, Russia launched 37 satellites in a single mission.
Complex manoeuvre
The ISRO wants to master this complex manoeuvre so that it can put multiple satellites into different orbits using the same rocket. A forthcoming PSLV launch will put the ISRO’s SCATSAT-1, meant for forecasting weather and cyclone detection, and a foreign satellite in two different orbits.
On December 16, 2015, after the PSLV-C29’s fourth stage put six Singapore satellites into the same orbit, the ISRO re-started the fourth-stage engine for four seconds. At that time, Dr. Sivan called it a “small experiment” to master the manoeuvre of putting multiple satellites into different orbits with the same vehicle.
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