This was space agency ISRO's 55th mission.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday launched PSLV-C53 mission on Thursday which carried three satellites from Singapore. This was the space agency's 55th mission and was launched at 6.02 pm from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
It is the second dedicated commercial mission of ISRO's commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL).
The mission
PSLV-C53 is designed to orbit the DS-EO satellite along with two other co-passenger satellites from Singapore. The four-stage, 44.4-metre-tall rocket had a lift-off mass of 228.433 tonnes.
Shortly after the launch, ISRO announced that PSLV-C53 has successfully injected the satellite at an altitude of 570 km. The launch vehicle carried three satellites - DS-EO, a 365 kg and NeuSAR, a 155 kg satellite - both belonging to Singapore. Third satellite was a 2.8 kg Scoob-1 of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
What the satellites aim to achieve?
DS-EO carries an Electro-Optic, multi-spectral payload that will provide full colour images for land classification, and serving humanitarian assistance and disaster relief needs, ISRO said in a release.
NeuSAR, meanwhile, is capable of providing images in day and night and under all weather conditions. The Scoob-I satellite is the first satellite in the Student Satellite Series (S3-I), a hands-on student training programme.
The mission proposes to demonstrate the utilization of the spent upper stage of the launch vehicle as a stabilised platform for scientific payloads subsequent to the separation of the satellites.