PSLV's first commercial launch successful

[Contrarian]

PSLV's first commercial launch successful


Sriharikota, PTI:
India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) successfully launched an Italian astronomical satellite, AGILE, marking India's first fully commercial launch.

PSLV-C8 blasted off into space carrying an Italian astronomical satellite, AGILE, from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre here today, marking India's first fully commercial launch.

Scientists cheered and loud applause was heard as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 11th flight, soared into the clear sky in a perfect lift-off around 3.30 pm from this space port, about 100 km north of Chennai.

Besides the 352 kg AGILE, the PSLV is also carrying ISRO's Advanced Avionics Module, weighing 185 kg, to flight-test advanced avionics such as mission computers, navigation and telemetry systems for use in future launch vehicles.

This is also the first time the PSLV is flying without the six strap-AMM and is only about 540 kg.

The 44-metre tall four-stage PSLV will put AGILE into orbit at 550 km above the earth. The satellite will be used to investigate gamma ray bursts, pulsars and supernova remnants.

PSLV had earlier launched six small foreign satellites into 550-800 km high polar sun synchronous orbits (SSO) from abroad for a nominal fee. This is the first fully commercial launch by the ISRO.

http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/apr232007/update164582007423.asp

 

[Contrarian]

PSLV-C8 blasts off with Italian payload

PSLV-C8 blasted off into space carrying an Italian astronomical satellite, AGILE, from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Monday, marking India's first fully commercial launch.

Scientists cheered as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 11th flight, soared into the clear sky in a perfect lift-off around 1530 hours from the space port, about 100 km north of Chennai.

The 44 metre tall four-stage PSLV placed Italian satellite AGILE into orbit at 550 km above the earth.

Besides the 352 kg AGILE, the PSLV is also carrying ISRO's Advanced Avionics Module, weighing 185 kg, to flight-test advanced avionics such as mission computers, navigation and telemetry systems for use in future launch vehicles.

This is also the first time the PSLV is flying without the six strap-on booster motors of its first stage. This has been done in view of the much lighter payload.

The combined weight of Agile and AMM is only about 540 kg. The satellite will be used to investigate gamma ray bursts, pulsars and supernova remnants. PSLV had earlier launched six small foreign satellites into 550-800 km high polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) from abroad for a nominal fee.

This time, international rate was being charged by the Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of the Department of Space, making it the first fully commercial launch by the ISRO.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/apr/23pslv.htm




I THINK IT DESERVED A NEW THREAD. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT NEWS, BUT MANY WONT UNDERSTAND ITS SIGNIFICANCE.

 

[Adux]

Congrats ISRO

 

[su-47]

Three cheers for ISRO!

 

[Neo]

Well done ISRO!

 

[Neo]

Malay,

Here's a Pakistani report about the launch.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Indian space programme goes commercial from today

BANGALORE: India will launch an Italian satellite via a home-built rocket this week, seeking entry into an exclusive club of nations that have put their space programmes to commercial use.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will on Monday (today) carry the Agile astronomical satellite from the Sriharikota spaceport, 80 kilometres north of Chennai in south India, space agency officials said here. India wants to join and compete with the United States, Russia, China, the Ukraine and the European Space Agency in offering commercial satellite launch services, a market worth up to 2.5 billion dollars a year.

Monday’s launch of the 352-kilogram Agile satellite will be a key test of the country’s commercial launch capabilities. “Success is very important in a mission like this because that’s what customers look for,” said KR Sridhara Murthi, executive director of Antrix Corp., the marketing arm of India’s space programme.

India started its space programme in 1963, and has since developed and put its own satellites into space. It has also designed and built launch rockets to reduce its dependence on overseas space agencies. It carried out the first successful launch of a domestic satellite, which weighed 35 kg, by a home-built rocket in 1980.

In those days, reaping commercial benefits from the programme was far from the minds of Indian policymakers and scientists, who were preoccupied with harnessing space technology to boost deficient communications and broadcasting facilities.

Satellites were designed to map natural resources and predict the weather to help farmers and the teeming masses of rural poor. “We haven’t reached the end of the road on those objectives yet,” said Murthi, a mechanical engineer with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.

Murthi said India could not afford to make commerce the primary objective of its space programme until the country’s development goals were met, and could only offer “spareable capacity” to potential customers.

Nonetheless, India wanted to be recognised as a “serious player” in space commerce, aiming for a 20 percent share of the satellite launch market, with plans to carry out two or three missions a year, he said. Antrix also plans to offer overseas customers a package deal under which local engineers would design and fabricate satellites for launch by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which runs India’s space programme.

“We call that on-orbit delivery,” said Murthi, who was previously at Bangalore-based ISRO, where he took part in satellite programme planning and technology transfers to companies. For Monday’s launch of the Italian satellite, ISRO is charging $11 million, the Press Trust of India has reported. Space agency officials have confirmed the fee is close to that figure. afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\04\23\story_23-4-2007_pg4_16

 

[joey]

Neo video of launch is available here, it is 93 MB, you can dl if you want to.

http://agile.rm.iasf.cnr.it/
Scroll down and see written "video is available here" shortly.

Pictures of integration : http://www.isro.org/pslv-c8/photo/index.htm

 

[joey]

Neo check out the quality of journalism of Ts Subramanian i once told you of, Though The Hindu paper has sometimes commie linkage scientific articles and other are kickass, very nicely covered, a news paper which first came before 1900.

Two more satellites to be launched this year
http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/24/stories/2007042404981200.htm

T.S. Subamanian

SRIHARIKOTA: Antrix Corporation Limited, the marketing agency of the Department of Space, charged $29,000 a kg for putting in orbit the Agile satellite of the Italian Space Agency using ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle called PSLV-C8 from Sriharikota on Monday, according to K.R. Sridhara Murthi, Executive Director, Antrix Corporation.

The Agile satellite weighs 352 kg. Although the PSLV in its three earlier flights put in orbit six small foreign satellites, this was the first full-fledged commercial launch for ISRO.

While the international rates for launching a satellite ranged between $10,000 and $15,000, Antrix charged $ 29,000 a kg because Agile had to be put in a specific orbit of about 550 km at a low inclination of 2.5 degrees to the equator, said Mr. Sridhara Murthi. This was a difficult orbit and inclination to achieve, and hence the premium rates.

The international market for launching satellites was estimated at $1.2 to 1.5 billion. This did not include micro-satellites, which formed "an entirely different market," he said. They were launched piggyback with bigger satellites. "There is a possibility that we may get two more satellites [to launch from India] in the next year," he added. He was speaking at a press conference at Sriharikota after the successful PSLV-C8 mission.

G. Madhavan Nair, ISRO Chairman, said the accuracy of the PSLV-C8 mission could be gauged from the fact while the vehicle was to put Agile into a circular orbit 550 km above the earth at an inclination of 2.5 degrees, what was achieved was an orbit between 549 km and 551 km at an inclination of 2.46 degrees. "For any launch vehicle, it is a remarkable achievement," he said. It proved the performance of the PSLV-C8's navigation, guidance and control systems.

There would be three more launches from Sriharikota before the year end, he said. There would be one launch of GSLV (Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) to put INSAT-4CR into orbit. There would be two PSLV launches — while one would put in orbit Cartosat-2A using the core-alone configuration and six small satellites from Canada, the other would be used for a full-fledged commercial launch.

Mr. Nair praised the performance of ISRO's Advanced Avionics Module (AAM), which had next generation computers, advanced telemetry packages, navigation, guidance and control systems. Computers controlled the flight of a vehicle from the lift-off till a satellite was injected into orbit. The present generation computers used in the ISRO vehicles were developed in the 1990s. "So we had to go for new generation computers," he explained.

B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvanathapuram, George Koshy, Vehicle Director, PSLV-C8, and John P. Zachariah, Deputy Director, VSSC, said the next generation computers in the AAM used a micro-processor called Vikram, designed, developed and realised by the VSSC.

According to P.S. Veeraraghavan, Director, ISRO Inertial Systems Unit, the AAM had three advanced navigation systems that included miniaturised electronics, a next generation navigation system and a GPS-aided navigation system.

N. Narayamoorthy, Mission Director, PSLV-C8, called the mission "unique' because a core-alone PSLV being used for the first time without the strap-on booster motors brought into play new factors, such as the vehicle's controllability, aerodynamics and implementation of new software.

 

[sultan0000]

another way to get that lucrative dollars.
cheers for isro
cheers for india

 

[Contrarian]

PSLV LAUNCHES SO FAR

*KITSAT-3 (Korea) & DLR-T(Germany) in May ‘99

*BIRD (Germany) & PROBA (Belgium) in Oct ‘01

*LAPAN-T (Indonesia) & P-SAT 1 (Argentina) in Jan ‘07

*Finally, AGILE (Italy) launched in April 2007