New Delhi: A few days after it celebrated the successful completion of a year around the Red planet by its first inter-planetary mission – the Mars Orbiter, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Monday launched its first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory into space, besides six satellites for Canada, Indonesia and the United States.
the 44.4 metres tall weighing around 320 ton polar satellite launch vehicle`s XL variant (PSLV-XL) carrying seven satellites, including Astrosat blasted off from the first launch pad at the rocket port here, around 80 km from Chennai.
With the successful launch of ASTROSAT, India gained an entry into the select club of nations having its own space observatory after the US, Japan, Russia and Europe. The Astrosat has the ability to observe celestial bodies like distant stars and cosmic X-Ray sources in different wavelengths simultaneously.
Along with Astrosat, four identical nano-satellites of Spire Global Inc., the US, a micro-satellite from Indonesia and a nano-satellite of the University of Toronto, Canada also took off. Just over 22 minutes into the flight, the rocket slug ASTROSAT at an altitude of 650 km above the earth.
Soon after, six other satellites were put into orbit and the whole mission ended in just over 25 minutes. Incidentally, this is the first time that an Indian rocket launched satellites from the US. Till date, India has launched 45 foreign satellites for a fee.
With a life span of five years, Astrosat will observe the universe through optical, ultraviolet, low and high energy X-ray components of the electromagnetic spectrum, whereas most other scientific satellites are capable of observing through a narrow wavelength band, the agency said.
Bureau Report
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