In its first mission in 2022, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) PSLV-C52 carrying EOS-04, an earth observation satellite that will provide high-quality images for applications like agriculture and flood mapping, and two other small satellites, will lift off early Monday morning from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
The rocket will take off from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 05.59 am on Monday. The countdown for the year’s first mission of the New Year began at 4.29 am on Sunday.
EOS-04 is a radar imaging satellite designed to provide high-quality images under all-weather conditions for applications such as agriculture, forestry & plantations, soil moisture and hydrology and flood mapping.
Weighing 1,710 kg, EOS-04, an earth observation satellite, will be put into a sun-synchronous polar orbit of 529 km by PSLV-C52. The mission will also carry two other small satellites -- INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD.
While INSPIREsat-1 is a student satellite from the Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology (IIST) in association with the Laboratory of Atmospheric & Space Physics at the University of Colorado, INS-2TD is a boulder and a technology demonstrator satellite from ISRO, which is a precursor to India-Bhutan Joint Satellite (INS-2B).
The launch of the EOS-04 satellite is considered crucial for the ISRO which witnessed just one successful launch in 2021. The ISRO, which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, was able to record just three successful launches in the past two years.
However, the country’s space agency hopes to launch nearly 20 satellites in 2022 with EOS-04 being the first. ISRO is likely to launch Chandrayaan-3, the country’s third unmanned mission to the moon, and the ambitious Gaganyaan mission without any crew this year.
Monday’s launch is also the first one under new ISRO director S Somanath who succeeded Dr K Sivan on January 14. Somanath was Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), the lead Centre responsible for launch vehicle technology development.
His contributions in PSLV and GSLV Mk-III were in their overall architecture, propulsion stages design, structural and structural dynamics designs, separation systems, vehicle integration and integration procedures development.
Watch latest videos by DH here: