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The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday successfully launched seven satellites in 1,200 seconds with the help of its most trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh coast.
The launch was carried out as per schedule at 11.51 am and ended at 12.06 pm.
India placed its second Ocean observation satellite Oceansat 2, along with six other nano satellites including two German two Rubinsats Rubin 9.1 and Rubin 9.2, and four cubesats --- the Beesat (assembled by Technical University, Berlin), UWE-2 (University of Wuerzburg, Germany), ITU-pSat (Istanbul Technical University, Turkey) and SwissCube-1 (Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland).
Vice President Hamid Ansari, who was present at the Satish Dhavan Space Centre, congratulated the scientists and technocrats over this splendid achievement for the nation.
Earlier, in April 2008, ISRO had launched 10 satellites in one go.
Oceansat-2 is carrying an Ocean Colour Monitor and a Ku-band pencil beam Scatterometer, besides a Radio Occultation Sounder for Atmospheric Studies, developed by the Italian Space Agency.
The Ku-band pencil beam Scatterometer with a ground resolution cell of 50 KMs X 50 KMs is expected to provide the wind vector range of four to 24 metres per second with better than 20% accuracy in speed and 20 degree in wind direction.
The on-board Scatterometer is a very good instrument for getting surface wind on the sea. It is required for sea state forecasting. And for maritime navigation, the wave height and disturbance is also important.
The eight-band OCM is similar to the one in Oceansat-1 with appropriate spectral bandwidth modifications based on the previous experience.
The OCM, with 360 metres spatial resolution and a swath of 1,420 kilometres would provide extensive communication links.
Since Oceansat-2 is a continuity mission to Oceansat-1, the same polar sun synchronous orbit of 720 kilometres has been retained.
However, unlike the Oceansat-1 that could essentially look at only the colour of the ocean, the Oceansat-2 is a comprehensive system and would look at surface winds and temperature, among other things.
The satellite is intended for identification of potential fishing zones, weather forecasting and other trends of the sea, coastal zone studies and providing inputs for general meteorological observations.