ISRO's heaviest commercial mission to take off today

July 10, 2015 08:51

Indian space agency ISRO is all set to launch its heaviest commercial mission that would put five British satellites on board PSLV-C28 from the spaceport of Sriharikota near Chennai on Friday.

The 62.5 hour countdown began on Wednesday at 07.28 am and is progressing smoothly for the launch scheduled for 09.58 pm on Friday, ISRO officials said.

Indian Space Research Organisation's workhorse would lift-off 44.4 metre tall PSLV-XL version from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and would put into orbit five satellites.

With the overall mass of five satellites is about 1,440kg, this launch becomes the "heaviest commercial mission" ever undertaken by ISRO and its commercial arm Antrix Corporation.

PSLV, in its 30th mission, would launch three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites, built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), United Kingdom, and two auxiliary satellites.

The three DMC3 satellites, each weighing 447 kg, will be launched into a 647 km Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) using the high-end version of PSLV-XL.

The earlier successful launches by ISRO -- Mars Orbiter Mission which was launched in November 5, 2013 and the Chandrayaan-1 launched in October 22, 2008 were with similar PSLV-XL variants.

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