New Delhi: India’s PSLV-C49 carrying its latest earth observation satellite EOS-01 and nine customer satellites lifted off from the spaceport here on Saturday. EOS-01 will be used for civil applications in agriculture, forestry, soil moisture, geology, coastal monitoring and flood monitoring.
This is the space agency’s first launch since a nationwide coronavirus lockdown was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 23. An earlier launch – of the GSAT-30 telecommunication satellite – was completed in January, but that was from a base in French Guinea.
This mission is very special and unusual for ISRO. The space activity cannot be done from 'work from home'. Each engineer has to be present at the lab. When talking about missions like these, each technician, employee has to work together: ISRO Chief K Sivan
(file pic) https://t.co/w827il7fJJ pic.twitter.com/JcB29msDxb— ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2020
The customer satellites include 4 each from the USA and Luxembourg and 1 from Lithuania with objectives ranging from multi-mission remote sensing to maritime applications and technology demonstration.
Communication satellite GSAT-30 was the only ISRO satellite launched this year on January 17 but from the European spaceport in French Guyana. After the PSLV-C49 mission, ISRO is targeting to launch PSLV-C50 mission carrying GSAT-12R communication satellite in December.
WATCH ISRO launches EOS01 and 9 customer satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota pic.twitter.com/2ifOeAYIpx
— ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2020
At 3.34 pm ISRO said the customer satellites had separated and been injected into their intended orbits. Six minutes earlier the space agency said India’s EOS-01 satellite had separated from the fourth stage of the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket and been injected into orbit.
