The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is geared up to create history by launching a record 104 satellites at 9.28 am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on Wednesday.
Significantly, it will be the highest number to be launched in a single operation. The ISRO’s current record stands at 20 satellites that were launched in 2016. Russia attained a global difference concerning the same by launching 37 in 2014.
While three are Indian satellites of the Cartosat-2 series from the 104 spacecraft, others are nanosatellites from other nations such as Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA.
ISRO’s commercial launching processes are more and more popular since it is able to do so at much cheaper costs than other nations. The space agency that moved into agreements with foreign players through commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited has been implementing such launches since 1999.
The agency is optimist to recover about half of its total cost through payments from foreign customers for this undertaking. “We want to make optimum use of our capacity. We initially wanted to launch three of our satellites, of which one weighs 730 kg and the other two 19 kg each. As there was additional space for 600 kg, we decided to accommodate the 101 nanosatellites,” said ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar as per a report in HT.
Fitted out with panchromatic and multispectral image sensors, Cartosat-2 series satellites are earth observation spacecraft that deliver remote sensing services. Data taken by these satellites can be used to screen road networks, map land use and effect proper water distribution.
