Plumes A’Plenty This Month For The ISRO

Between September 17th and September 20th, the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, India is going to be a rather busy area. For the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is going to launch Polaris, an Israeli recon satellite, via a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The satellite itself weights approximately 300 kg and will take pictures of the Earth, regardless of the weather or if day or night.



The PSLV is a four-stage launch vehicle. Standing 44 meters tall and weighing in at 295 tons, it is in core-alone configuration (six strap-on booster motors are absent). This is all that’s required to push a satellite into orbit with a weight around the 600 kg mark. The stages of core-alone a now being stacked in the Mobile Service Tower of the first launch pad at Sriharikota. This will be the PSLV’s 12th flight and is the second time the vehicle has been used in a core-alone configuration.



Additionally, the launch efforts for the ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) continue to move forward. The scheduled lift off for the INSAT-4C R communication satellite will be at 4:30 p.m. on September 1st. This is the first time in ISRO’s history that two launches will occur within a span of three weeks of each other from this launch facility. The PSLV is expected to launch later in the month, as indicated above. The ISRO is expected to complete a total of four launches this year—New Delhi, India—August 30, 2007