ISRO MAKES FIRST COMMERCIAL LAUNCH

Congratulations to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for making the first commercial launch of a foreign satellite through PSLV. ISRO had launched the Italian satellite, AGILE, through the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C8) on Monday. This satellite is designed to be used for astronomical purposes. The weight of this satellite is 352 kg. ISRO charged $29,000 per kg, it means ISRO gets approximately 42 crores of rupees for launch of this satellite. This significant event is a proof of India’s technological advancements especially in Space department. ISRO had already launched foreign satellites but they were smaller ones that were launched along with Indian spacecraft as the main payload. Earlier only the likes of US, Russia, China and France had this capability, now India has also joined them. We are still long way to go inorder to match them.

Report I – The Hindu
Report II – The Hindu

Foreign Payloads Launched by PSLV

ISRO has two launch vehicles to launch satellites. They are PSLV and GSLV. Before the advent of PSLV and GSLV we were dependent on foreign rockets especially Russian launch vehicles to launch our satellites.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV): It was designed to launch Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into Sun Synchronous Orbits (SSO). It can also launch small size satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV): It was designed to launch INSAT-type satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).