ISRO Succesfully Launches ‘Chhota Bheem’ PSLV-C43 With 30 Other Satellites

OB Bureau

November 29, 2018 1:27 pm

Picture Courtesy: ISRO/Twitter

Sriharikota: Indian Space Research Organization on Thursday, successfully launched its PSLV-C43 rocket carrying India’s best-ever high-resolution earth imaging satellite ‘HysIS’ (Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

It has been primarily created to study the earth’s surface in visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This 45th flight of the PSLV, also nicknamed ‘Chhota Bheem’, carried along 30 small co-passenger satellites from eight different countries, mostly from the United States. It placed 31 satellites in two different orbits- one at a higher altitude and the other at a lower altitude, while all the foreign satellites were placed in a 504 km orbit. The PSLV’s main passenger weighs relatively low 380 kg.

ISRO said HysIS is an earth observation satellite developed by ISRO. “It is the primary satellite of the PSLV-C43 mission. The satellite will be placed in 636 km polar sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) with an inclination of 97.957 degrees. The mission life of the satellite is five years,” it said.

ISRO holds the record for launching the highest number of satellites in a single mission, which was 104 of them on February 15, 2017.

“HysIS is a very rare satellite with a super-sharp eye, and very few countries have indigenously mastered this technology,” ISRO Chairman K Sivan said. He said several countries are trying to send such hyper-spectral cameras into space but interpreting its result is not easy.