ISRO places two United Kingdom Earth observation satellites in orbit

In a night launch, the workhorse PSLV-C42 launch vehicle blasted off from the first launchpad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 10.08 PM. The PSLV injected the satellites into orbit 17 minutes and 45 seconds after lift off and placed them in a sun synchronous orbit 583 km from the earth.

ISRO chairman K Sivan said the mission was a success and congratulated the scientists. “Today I am exteremly happy to announce that PSLV-C42 carrying two customer satellites NovaSAR and S1-4 placed them precisely in orbit. Within the next six months, 10 satellite missions and eight launch vehicle missions would be launced – one every two weeks, he said

ISRO’s moon mission would be launched on January 3, 2019 he said. The two satellites of UK-based Surrey Satellite Technologies Ltd (SSTL), both weighing 889 kg, were launched as per a commercial arrangement between the company and ISRO’s commerical wing – Antrix Corporation Ltd.

ISRO had successfully carried out a similar night launch in 2015 and placed five satellites belonging to SSTL. The launch comes almost six months after ISRO successfully placed the INRSS-1I navigation satellite in orbit on April 12.