ISRO Creates History; Launches 104 Satellites On Single Rocket

ISRO tweeted saying, “The PSLV-C37 / Cartosat -2 Series Mission Successfully Launched all 103 Satellites”. It set the record for most satellites launched in June 2014, when its Dnepr rocket carried a cluster of 37 satellites into orbit. The total weight of all these satellites on board PSLV C37 is 1378Kgs. The other payloads are BGUsat from Israel, Al-Farabi-1 from Kazakhstan, PEASSS from the Netherlands and Nayif-1 from UAE. “This day shall go down as a landmark in the history of our space programme”, President wrote on Twitter.

“My hearty congratulations to the ISRO team for this success”, ISRO director Kiran Kumar told scientists who had gathered at the observatory to watch the progress of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket.

Earth observation Cartosat-2 satellite was the first to take off.

Those satellites, once functioning in orbit, will allow Planet to image the entire Earth every day, when combined with data beamed back to engineers from 12 other Doves and RapidEye satellites operated by the USA company. It must also be noted that the launch countdown of 28 hours was the shortest in all the PSLV missions so far. ISRO scientists have used the XL Variant – the most powerful rocket – earlier used in the ambitious Chandrayaan and during the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). The nano-satellites belonged to worldwide customers and arrangement was made by Antrix Corporation Ltd (ANTRIX) the commercial arm of the ISRO.

From previous launches, it is true that ISRO mastered the art of ensuring that no collisions take place.

The previous record was held by Russian Federation when they launched 37 satellites in 2014.

N Chandrababu Naidu: Overwhelmed to witness this magnificent feat by @isro in launching 104 satellites.

But before the satellites start sending imagery back to Earth, the company first needs to correctly position each one to guarantee maximum data-gathering efficiency.