Cartosat-2 launch tomorrow: Countdown for Isro's 'eye in the sky' begins

When Indian Army soldiers conducted surgical strikes, they had help from an 'eye in the sky'

The 28-hour countdown operation of the PSLV-C38/Cartosat-2 series satellite mission started on Thursday at 05:29 hours IST.

This comes after the Mission Readiness Review Committee and Launch Authorisation Board cleared the countdown on Wednesday.

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

Isro's workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 40th flight (PSLV-C38), will carry these satellites into orbit. The rocket is scheduled to take off from the Sriharikota space port near Chennai at 9.29 am on Friday.

The rocket will carry the 712 Kg Cartosat-2 series satellite and 30 co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 243 Kg at lift-off, into a 505 Km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit.

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

The PSLV-C38 will be launched from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. This will be the seventeenth flight of the PSLV in its 'XL' configuration (with the use of solid strap-on motors).

The primary Cartosat-2 series satellite is a remote sensing satellite. The imagery sent by the satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and man-made features, and various other land information systems, as well as for geographical information system (GIS) applications.

The co-passenger satellites comprise 30 nano satellites from India and 14 other countries — Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. The total weight of all the satellites carried onboard PSLV-C38 is about 955 Kg.

The 30 international customer nano satellites are being launched as part of commercial arrangements with Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), Isro's commercial arm.

What does the Cartosat satellite do?