ROOM
57
Astronautics
When it
became
known that
ISRO was
raising the
number of
satellites on
the mission,
international
customers
formed a
queue to
have their
spacecraft
launched
back its own stream of information. The Kicksat
mothership reached its orbit and transmitted
beacon signals that were received by radio
amateurs. However, due to a clock reset, the tiny
satellites couldn’t be deployed and burned up
inside the KickSat on re-entry about a month later.
In June 2014 a Russian Dnepr rocket launched
37 satellites from different countries for scientific
and commercial purposes in one go and prior to
this, in November 2013, an American Minotaur
rocket had deployed 29 satellites in a single flight.
India’s 104 satellite mission surpassed all
previous records, attracting interest not only
within the country but overseas too, including
China. After India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM),
it was this flight which aroused more curiosity
and public interest compared to some of the other
Indian space science missions.
Only three of the 104 satellites launched by
ISRO were Indian - the primary payload being the
713 kg Cartosat-2 satellite which will be used for
cartographic and remote sensing purposes, and
two ISRO nanosatellites weighing 8.4 kg and 9.7
kg respectively.
The additional 101 foreign micro and nano-
satellites were from the US, Dubai, Israel,
Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
These included 96 from the United States, of
which 88 belonged to a single organisation, the
San Francisco-based Planet. Known as Dove Flock
3P nano-satellites, each weigh 4.7 kg and are
imaging the Earth daily.
The remaining eight US nano-satellites -
called Lemur and weighing 4.6 kg each - were
from Spire Global, also from San Francisco.
Their role is to carry out vessel tracking and
weather measurement.
The other foreign satellites were PEASS-1 from
the Netherlands (3 kg); Dido-2 of Switzerland (4.2
kg); BGUSSat of Israel (4.3 kg); the 1.7 kg Al-Farabi
from Kazakhstan and the 1.1 kg Nayif-1 from Dubai.
The satellites from the Netherlands,
Israel, Kazakhstan and Dubai are technology
demonstrators, and the main role of all 104
satellites is Earth imaging, which could lend itself
to any interpretation! The total weight of all the
satellites was 1377 kg.
Significantly, the mission saw two arch
political rivals joining hands on single mission -
a rare occasion when Israel and the Arab world
flew together as there was an Israeli and an
Arab satellite!
The rocket for this historic mission was an
advanced version of the highly-proven four-stage
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - the PSLV-
XL. The flight was designated PSLV-C37.
The 28-hour countdown kicked off at 5.28
am on 14 February. P.Kunhi Krishnan, director
of the Sriharikota Spaceport, described it as
the “shortest countdown” compared to those
of earlier missions.
The countdown progressed flawlessly and the
much-awaited moment came at 9.28 am as the
PSLV lifted off with a thunder literally shaking the
ground below it. During the initial moments, it
The fully integrated
PSLV-C37 with the mobile
service tower.
ISRO
Engineering students
working on Nayif-1
developed by the
Mohammed bin Rashid
Space Centre (MBRSC)
and American University
of Sharjah (AUS). It
started transmitting
about an hour after
launch.
