India successfully launched an earth observation satellite EOS-01 and nine customer satellites on board its Polar rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Saturday.
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C49) lifted off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 3.11 PM at the end of a 26-hour countdown and injected the satellites into orbit one after another 20 minutes later.
The lift off was delayed by nine minutes due to rain brought on by the winter monsoon, Isro said.
This is the first mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation this year. The space agency had last launched a satellite on December 11 last year, when the PSLV had put in space an earth observation satellite similar to the one launched on Saturday.
Apart from the Indian satellite, the launch vehicle carried on board an experimental satellite from Lithuania, four marine application satellites from Luxembourg, and four remote sensing satellites from the United States.
The satellite launched on Saturday marked the beginning of a new nomenclature for the series of earth observation satellites with the name EOS-01. The satellite will be used for agriculture, forestry, and disaster management support.
“This mission is very special and unusual for ISRO. Space activity cannot happen with work from home. Each and every space engineer has to be available in lab, industry, integration area as well as the field especially when we are talking about launch missions like this,” said ISRO chairperson K Sivan. He said the work was done keeping in mind safety of the team following health protocols.
