PSLV rocket launches communications satellite

Mangalore Today / NDTV

Sriharikota, July 15:  Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Sriharikota have launched a new communications satellite using the smaller of their rockets, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

 

 

The transponders on the satellite, G-SAT12, will be used for education, telephone and telemedicine services. It weighs 1410 kgs and costs 80 crores. India is short of transponders, and today’s mission, if successful, could add 12 C-band transponders. 

The PSLV, worth 90 crores, has established itself as a workhouse rocket - this is its 19th mission. It’s considered complex and unique because it entails five special orbital manoeuvres.  The PSLV has to ensure that the satellite is injected into the correct geo-synchronous orbit - that will take a few days.

Neither the satellite nor the rocket are insured.

Two more launches of the PSLV are expected later this year. 

The PSLV is being used because the GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) is out of commission due to recent failures, including one in December which included a domestic communications satellite. Before that, the GSLV had failed in April 2010.