Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday will launch an earth observation satellite for civilian and strategic purposes, the first since the Covid-19 pandemic halted operations in March.
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket would carry 10 satellites including E0S01 and nine international customer satellites, of which four satellites are owned by the US, four by Luxembourg and one owned by Lithuania. This would be the 51st mission of PSLV rocket and the launch is scheduled on 7 November at 3.02 pm, subject to weather conditions.
The customer satellites will be launched under the commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Ltd., ISRO’s commercial arm. According to the agency, E0S01 is launched for application support in agriculture, forestry and disaster management and the satellite owned by Lithuania is launched with the objective of technological demonstration. The other four satellites from Luxembourg will be launched for maritime applications, while the four satellites owned by the US will be working on multi-mission remote sensing.
ISRO has also lined up few launches in the month of November and December, which include the first demonstration test of its new rocket small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV). The space agency is is working on high throughput satellites with 300 bpps in the communication space.