9 Amazing Facts About ISRO 104 Satellite Launch

ISRO 104 satellites successfully launched from First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on 15th February 2017.

ISRO’s 104 satellite launch became a record among the world space agencies, ISRO became the first space agency launched the largest number of satellites ever launched on a single rocket.

ISRO’s PSLV C39 was the launching vehicle of these 104 satellites, It was the thirty-ninth mission of PSLV and sixteenth launch in “XL configuration”. XL configuration uses solid strap-on motors.

PSLV is the most trusted launch vehicle of ISRO. It has a capacity to place 1.5-ton payload into low earth orbit. In this mission, PSLVC-37 took a total weight of 1378 kg to space.

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ISRO brock the record of Russian space agency by launching 104 satellite in a single rocket. The previous record was the launch of 37 satellites in a single rocket on July 19th^, 2014.

In this ISRO 104 satellites, only three of them were Indian satellites others are satellites from six other countries. These foreign satellites launched because of the agreement between ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited and other space agencies.

The remaining in the ISRO 104 satellites are 96 from the USA and remaining from Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, respectively.

ISRO’s satellites among these 104 satellites are Cartosat- 2D, INS 1A, and INS 1B.

ISRO achieved a world record by launching 104 satellite in the single rocket but PSLV is far behind than its counterparts when considering their lifting capacity.

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NASA’s rocket can lift 20 to 25 ton of payload into low earth orbit and Chinese rocket has a capacity of 10 ton and PSLV can lift only 1.5 ton and GSLV can lift up to 3 ton of payload into orbit.

Recently ISRO developed GSLV Mk 3 rocket and launched the communication satellite GSAT 9 into Geo synchronous orbit, It has a capacity to launch 4-ton payload into Geosynchronous orbit and 10 ton to low earth orbit.

Let’s learn about some amazing facts of 9 Satellites out of ISRO 104 satellites from different research centers.

Amazing Facts of Top 9 out of ISRO 104 Satellites

1.Cartosat 2D

• Cartosat 2D was the important satellite among the 104 satellites carried by PSLV C39. Cartosat 2D was an earth observation satellite.
• It has a mass of 714 kg, the heaviest among the 104 satellites.It was placed at polar sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of 505 km.
• The aim of this Cartosat series of satellites is to provide cartographic applications.The images from the Cartosat 2D will be used for the creation of maps, to analyze land information system, geographical features, water distribution and road network monitoring etc.

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2. INS 1A and INS 1B

• These are the two nanosatellites of ISRO in the group of 104 satellites.
• These satellites carry payloads from Space Application Center(SAC) and laboratory for Electro-Optics System(LEOS)

3. Nayif-1

• Nayif-1 is the nanosatellite designed by Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre Dubai. The agency is working for UAE space programs.
• This nano cube at has a  weight of 1.38 kg and dimension of 10×10×11.35 cm3. It is the smallest among the 104 satellites.

4. Al-Farabi-1

• This is another nanosatellite in that group of 104 satellites.It was a research satellite designed and built by designed and built by Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• This satellite is built for educational purposes to check some self-made components of Kazakhstan students and the satellite is mounted with a 3 Mp CMOS camera.

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5. BGUSAT(Ben Gurion University Sat)

• This is a research CubeSat from Israel. It was built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Ben Gurion University.
• The aim of this satellite to research atmospheric and weather phenomena in the infrared wavelength and explore the atmospheric gaseous content.
• The satellite has a small infrared camera payload.The satellite is operated by research students from Ben Gurion University.

6. DIDO-2

• This is a nano satellite designed by the Swiss company SpacePharma.This is a research satellite with an aim to test a small pharmaceutical laboratory in microgravity conditions.
• This unit can carry out experiments in antibiotic resistance, bacterial growth, self-assembly, nanoparticle synthesis, particle aggregation dynamics, polymerization, emulsion stability and crystallization.

7. PEASSS(PiezoElectric Assisted Smart Satellite Structure)

• This is experimental nanosatellite from The Netherlands.The main objective of this project to test “smart structure” satellites.
• The smart structure consists of composite and piezo electric material and next generation sensors for improved pointing and power generation in space.
• This experiment will provide improved earth observation such as environmental and planetary mapping, border and regional imaging.

8. LEMUR Satellites

• These are from the USA consist of eight nano satellite.The objective of the LEMUR satellites to track global ship traffic.
• The LEMUR satellites are a part of remote sensing satellite constellation. PSLV launched the eighth batch of lemur satellites in 2017 February.

9. DOVE (Flock-3P)

• DOVE is a group of nano satellites from the USA.There are 88 eighty-eight satellites in this group. These are earth observational satellites launched by San Fransico imaging company planet.
• This launch also created a record of largest number of satellites launched at a single time by a satellite operator.