New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today congratulated the ISRO scientists for the successful launch of six satellites of Singapore.
“Our scientists at @isro accomplish another momentous feat. Congrats to them on PSLV-C29 successfully launching 6 Singapore satellites,” he tweeted.
“The launch, coming at a time when we mark 50 years of India-Singapore ties is significant. India cherishes strong relations with Singapore,” he added in another tweet. PSLV-C29 rocket carrying six Singapore satellites was launched from the spaceport of Sriharikota this evening. The satellites were successfully put into orbit after a perfect launch of the polar rocket in the landmark 50th space mission.
The maiden launch from Sriharikota was on August 10, 1979 when the first experimental launch of Satellite Launch Vehicle SLV-3 with Rohini Technology Payload ended in failure as the satellite could not be placed in orbit.
Since then, ISRO has undertaken 49 other missions onboard 32 Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV), three Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV), four Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicles (ASLV), nine Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and one GSLV Mark -III, an ISRO official said.
In today's mission, PSLV in its ‘core-alone' configuration sans solid strap-on motors, launched Singapore's first commercial earth observation satellite designed and developed by ST Electronics and five other micro and nano satellites.
Talking about the mission, P Kunhikrishnan, Director of SDAC, said in every sense it was a ‘golden launch'. “The launch was tough due to bad weather and rain. This year we have completed 17 launches for other countries. That reaffirms our strong commitment and potential to be a major player in the global space market,” he said.
“We are proud to have got the opportunity to be the host of our partner from Singapore and I'm sure we have been able to provide them world class launch service from here.”
He said the launch was a tough one owing to bad weather and heavy rainfall over the region recently. “It is the first ever campaign we have taken up in the month of November when the weather vagaries generally set up over here.” PSLV-C29 is a take-off for a sequence of monthly launches from here starting with three remaining missions of IRNSS Navigation satellites, he added.
Mission Director B Jayakumar described the launch as ‘grand success and 100 per cent mission accomplishment'. “Vehicle has performed excellently well. The orbit achieved is very precise. Inclination is very close, on dot. We are nearing 100 satellites from PSLV. This is the sixth dedicated mission,” he said.
The mission was also used by ISRO for the first time to carry out an experiment to reignite stage four of the rocket for four seconds from 67.25 minutes (after the lift-off).
“After injecting all the satellites we are carrying out a major experiment to ignite once again PS4. This aspect is going to be a major mission flexibility for the Cecile to plan different orbital missions in a single launch,” an ISRO spokesperson said.
Tang Kum Cheun, President, Communications and Sensor System Group, ST Electronics of Singapore, said, “This is of course a very meaningful launch for us being the 50th year of independence for Singapore and the 50th year of relationship between Singapore and India. So we are very happy.” TeLEOS-1, weighing 400 kg, is an electro-optical satellite for remote sensing applications. It comes with a mission life of five years.
Besides, the TeLEOS-1, PSLV-C29 carried two micro and three nano-satellites, developed by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
