ISRO successfully places two UK earth observation satellites in orbit

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched the NovaSAR and S1-4 earth observation satellites of U.K and positioned them in the designated orbit, reported PTI on Sunday.

The report published by the news agency states that the NovaSAR is intended to be used for forest mapping, land use and ice cover monitoring, flood and disaster monitoring, while S1-4 will be used for surveying resources, environment monitoring, urban management and disaster monitoring.

The PSLV-C42 launch vehicle took off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 10.08 PM. on Sunday. And 17 minutes and 45 seconds later the PSLV had completely injected the satellites into its respective orbit and placed them in a sun-synchronous orbit about 583 km from the earth.

ISRO chairman K Sivan informed that the mission was a success and congratulated the scientists.

He said, reports PTI, “Today I am extremely 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 launched – one every two weeks.”

He also further added that ISRO’s moon mission would be launched on January 3, 2019.

In the past also ISRO had successfully carried out a similar night launch in 2015 and placed five satellites belonging to SSTL. Earlier in the year in April, the ISRO had successfully placed the INRSS-1I navigation satellite in its orbit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media site Twitter to congratulate the space scientists on the successful launch of the two U.K satellites.

Congratulations to our space scientists! ISRO successfully launched PSLV C42, putting two UK satellites in orbit, demonstrating India’s prowess in the competitive space business. @isro

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 16, 2018

He wrote on Twitter, “Congratulations to our space scientists! ISRO successfully launched PSLV C42, putting two UK satellites in orbit, demonstrating India’s prowess in the competitive space business. @isro”