India Successfully Launches Three Satellites

Flash! Archive
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000

India Successfully Launches Three Satellites

More Information:

An Indian PSLV successfully launched three satellites from SHAR Center, Sriharikota at 04:53 UTC on October 22. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), PSLV-C3, successfully launched satellites: Technology Experiment Satellite (TES) for ISRO, BIRD for Germany,and PROBA for Belgium. TES and BIRD were placed in a sun-synchronous 568 km (307 nmi) orbit. PROBA was placed in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 568 km (307 nmi) and an apogee of 638 km (345 nmi). It will eventually orbit at an altitude of 829 km (448 nmi).

TES 1, built by ISRO, is planned to test and validate advanced spacecraft bus and payload technologies. TES 1 will carry a beam steering antenna, solid state recorder, step-and-stare mode camera, two-mirror optics and high bit rate data transmission.

BIRD is a German satellite mission to demonstrate the scientific and technological value and the technical and programmatic feasibility of the combination of ambitious science and new, not yet space-proofed advanced technologies using small satellite technologies. BIRD mission is known as FIRES which is using a design-to-science philosophy to use infrared remote sensing for ecologists, fire ecologists and volcanologists.

The Project for On-Board Autonomy (PROBA) satellite mission is a technology experiment to demonstrate the on-board autonomy of a generic platform suitable for small scientific or application missions.

Verhaert Design & Development is the prime contractor for Belgium's first satellite. The PROBA satellite is a cube (0.8 x 0.6 x 0.6 m) covered by gallium -arsenide solar cells on five faces. It is three-axis stabilized by a double-headed star tracker, GPS receiver and a set of reaction wheels with the redundancy of miniaturized fiber-optic and solid-state gyros. It will use an on-board computer for spacecraft Autonomy in orbit. A high-performance RISC processor, the ERC 32, will perform spacecraft management including Guidance, navigation, control, housekeeping and monitoring on-board scheduling and resource management.

SPACEandTECH Digest is a weekly roundup of the latest industry news of interest to the space professional. SPACEandTECH Flash! is an internet push service offered by Andrews Space & Technology to bring the latest on orders, launches, and important breaking news to your desktop. SPACEandTECH Digest and SPACEandTECH Flash! are part of the Andrews Space & Technology www.spaceandtech.com website, a website designed to serve the information needs of the space industry.

If you would like to subscribe to the SPACEandTECH Flash! (currently a free service), contact the www.spaceandtech.com Editor-in-Chief, Joe Hopkins, at editor@spaceandtech.com

October 22, 2001