India for the first time will launch a foreign satellite, an Italian one, as a primary payload on a home-grown rocket, as space scientists prepare to further demonstrate the country's cost-effective launch services capability.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched foreign payloads as piggybacks in the past; next month's mission would see the space agency launching the 360-kg AGILE spacecraft as a primary payload.
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the workhorse rocket of Bangalore-headquartered ISRO, would blast-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota with AGILE and India's Advanced Avionics Module (AAM) as secondary payload.
The launch is scheduled between April 20-30.
"It will send a right message to global community. This contract (to launch AGILE) was obtained against competition, and once we are able to launch it on time and at a good price, I think this (foreign payload launches) will start coming more and more to us", ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told the agency.
AGILE is a space scientific mission devoted to gamma-ray astrophysics supported by the Italian Space Agency, with the scientific and programmatic co-participation of the Italian Institute of Astrophysics and the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics.
The 180-kg AAM is aimed at testing some of the advanced avionic package for use in the future PSLV flights, the space agency said.
{{/usCountry}}The 180-kg AAM is aimed at testing some of the advanced avionic package for use in the future PSLV flights, the space agency said.
{{/usCountry}}Officials said PSLV configuration for next month's flight would be modified to use only the core vehicle (without the six solid propellant strap-on motors).