9:50 am Mission accomplished as Isro successfully places record 20 satellites into their respective orbits.
PSLV has ‘done its job’ and put 20 satellites in the Orbit, said Chairman Kiran Kumar.
9: 38 am The PSLV rocket, standing 44.4 metre tall and weighing 320 ton tore into the morning skies with a growl breaking free of the earth’s gravitational pull. The 20 satellites weighed 1,288 kg. The rocket’s main cargo is India’s 725.5 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation. This satellite is similar to the earlier Cartosat-2, 2A and 2B. The other 19 satellites weighing totally around 560 kg are from US, Canada, Germany and Indonesia as well as one satellite each from Chennai’s Sathyabama University and College of Engineering, Pune.
{{/usCountry}}9: 38 am The PSLV rocket, standing 44.4 metre tall and weighing 320 ton tore into the morning skies with a growl breaking free of the earth’s gravitational pull. The 20 satellites weighed 1,288 kg. The rocket’s main cargo is India’s 725.5 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation. This satellite is similar to the earlier Cartosat-2, 2A and 2B. The other 19 satellites weighing totally around 560 kg are from US, Canada, Germany and Indonesia as well as one satellite each from Chennai’s Sathyabama University and College of Engineering, Pune.
{{/usCountry}}9:28 pm Isro launches 20 satellites
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) created a record by launching 20 satellites in one go from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota.
Cartosat-2 Series is similar to the earlier Cartosat-2, 2A and 2B, and 19 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 560 kg at lift-off would be injected into a 505-km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit.
9:00 AM The whole launch mission will get over in around 26 minutes
The mission would last for 26 and a half minutes by which time all satellites will be put into a polar synchronous orbit of 505 km height one by one.
Though Isro has been placing multiple satellites into the orbit in a single launch for the last few years, Wednesday’s event is the biggest ever embarked by the space agency in terms of the number of satellites. With 20 satellites, the agency will beat its previous record of placing 10 satellites in April 2008.
Till date India has launched 57 foreign satellites successfully.
Russia holds the world record for placing the most number of satellites in a single launch. Its Dnepr rocket launched 37 satellites in 2014.