NEW DELHI: The successful launch of PSLV-C48 mission at 3.25 pm on Wednesday will not only make Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists a happy lot but will also cheer a bunch of Israeli students as the space agencys mainstay rocket will also put into orbit their experimental satellite in space.
Isro chairman K Sivan told TOI that “one of the nine customer satellites to be launched along with primary payload Risat-2BR1 (surveillance satellite) has been made by Israeli students”.
Jointly built by Herzliya Science Center and Shaar Hanegev High School students in Israel, remote-sensing satellite Duchifat-3, weighing just 2.3 kg, is designed to help Israeli students observe the Earth from space. The educational satellite, which has an on-board camera for earth imaging and an amateur radio transponder, will mainly be used for ecological research like checking air and water source pollution and forest monitoring.
Three Israeli students — Alon Abramovich, Meitav Assulin and Shmuel Aviv Levi, all 17 to 18 years old— will witness the launch of Duchifat-3 by PSLV-C48 from the Sriharikota launch centre.
Besides the Israeli student satellite, piggybacking on 628-kg Risat-2BR1 would be small satellites from the US (multi-mission Lemur-4 satellites, technology demonstration Tyvak-0129, earth imaging 1HOPSAT), Italy (search and rescue Tyvak-0092) and Japan (QPS-SAR— a radar imaging earth observation satellite).
The countdown for Wednesdays launch started at 4.40pm on Tuesday. Sixteen minutes after the liftoff, PSLV-C48 will put Risat-2BR1 into the polar orbit at 576 km altitude and a minute later the first of the nine customer satellites will be ejected. The launch mission is expected to conclude in 21 minutes when the last of the customer satellites will be puRead More – Source
