Isro to launch Cartosat-2 along with 30 smaller satellites on Friday

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is gearing up to launch a satellite in its Cartosat-2 series, for earth observation, along with 30 co-passenger satellites.

All these will be carried into space by Isro’s work horse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 40th flight — this one titled PSLV-C38. The rocket is scheduled to take off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota (an island off the Andhra coast, about 100 km from Chennai) space port on Friday, at 9.29 am.

The rocket will carry the 712-kg Cartosat-2 series satellite and the other 30, the latter together weighing 243 kg, into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

The images sent by the satellite will be useful for a number of applications. The co-passenger ones comprise 29 Nano satellites from 14 countries — Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Britain and America, as well as one Nano satellite from India.

The 29 international ones are being launched in an arrangement with Antrix Corporation, commercial arm of Isro.

Remember the 'eye in the sky' that helped Indian soldiers to successfully execute the strike against terrorist posts over the Kashmir border last September? Isro is strengthening this eye with Friday’s launch. The primary mission objective is to provide high-resolution spot imagery.

A sum of Rs 160 crore has been allocated for the project. The Panchromatic camera which is loaded in will take pictures and videos, for help in both military and civil purposes.

Cartosat-1, the first in this series of earth observation satellites, was launched in May 2005, in the PSLV-C6 launch vehicle. Followed by Cartosat-2 in January 2007. A Cartosat-3 series is also planned.