India's space agency launches 8 satellites into 2 orbits

In a major milestone, the Indian Space Organisation (ISRO) today successfully launched a total of eight satellites into two orbits. This is the first time ISRO has launched payload satellites in two orbits, a rare feat for any space agency.

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The Indian space agency launched the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)-C35 at 9:12 am today from the Sriharikota space centre in southern India. The launch was spread over 135 minutes, the longest by ISRO. It faced several other unprecedented challenges as well, including bringing together the entire mission in 25 days, its fastest. Because the satellites had to be injected into two different orbits, the PSLV-C35 had to be re-ignited after the first placement.

The SCATSAT-1, weighing 371 kg, was one of the eight satellites to be launched today. It is designed to study weather and can last in space for as many as five years. The other seven included two developed by Indian universities — PISAT and PRATHAM, and the rest being from foreign countries.

The PISAT, for instance, has been designed by PES University in Bengaluru to explore remote sensing applications. The PRATHAM has been sent by IIT Bombay and it is designed to estimate the total electron count in space.

Commercial payloads in the mission included three satellites from Algeria — the ALSAT-1B, an earth observation satellite; remote sensing satellite ALSAT-2B; and technology demonstrator ALSAT-1N. The other two included the U.S.’ Pathfinder-1, a commercial high resolution imaging satellite, and Canada’s NLS-19, another technology demonstration satellite.

India has launched 79 satellites for international customers so far. 

"This is a challenging two-in-one mission which puts India in a unique league of nations having the capability to achieve two different orbits in a single mission," ISRO Chairman, AS Kiran Kumar, told NDTV.