Italy’s Carlo Gavazzi Space-built Agile satellite will be launched into a 550km (340 miles) orbit by May this year using India’s four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-8 from Sriharikota spaceport, writes Radhakrishna Rao.
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) commercial arm, Bangalore-based Antrix, is organising the launch of the 360kg (790lb) Agile spacecraft, which will use a gamma ray imaging detector to conduct astronomical observations. The launch will be the first commercial flight of a PSLV involving a solitary satellite. Previously, the PSLV has launched lightweight satellites for Belgium, Germany and South Korea on commercial terms as piggyback payloads.
Antrix has a series of payload contracts including a micro remote-sensing satellite for Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and Lapan Tubsat’s spacecraft for Indonesia’s Aerospace Electronics Technology Centre. Both will be piggyback payloads aboard the PSLV.
“It will be a great opportunity for us if we can capture at least 10% of the launch business, worth $2 billion in the international market,” says Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair. The PSLV may also be used to launch an Israeli-built reconaissance satellite before the end of this year.
ISRO is also planning its Small Satellites for Atmospheric and Space Sciences mission. This involves small satellites monitoring the Earth’s troposphere and stratosphere. Of interest are aerosol phenomena, forest fires, ozone, water vapour, soil moisture and sea surface salinity in the South-East Asia region.
Previously such studies used sounding rockets and balloon-borne instruments.
Source: Flight International
