Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its PSLV C-52 earth observation satellite EOS-04 along with two smaller passenger payloads from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota early on Monday morning.
The 25-hour countdown for the liftoff had started on Sunday. The PSLV blasted off from the spaceport at 05.59 am.
“PSLV-C52/EOS-04 Mission: The countdown process of 25 hours and 30 minutes leading to the launch has commenced at 04:29 hours today,” ISRO said in a tweet.
The launch vehicle will orbit EOS-04 in a sun-synchronous polar orbit of 529 km.
EOS-04, which has a mission life of 10 years, is a radar imaging satellite designed to take high quality photographs irrespective of weather conditions for use in agriculture, forestry, plantations, soil moisture, hydrology and flood mapping.
One of the two smaller satellites is a student satellite (INSPIREsat-1), a joint initiative of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology and Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado and other organisations.
The two scientific payloads in the satellite are installed to improve understanding of ionosphere dynamics and the sun’s coronal heating process.
The other satellite is a technology demonstrator (INS-2TD) from ISRO. It has a thermal imaging camera as its payload and would help in assessing land surface temperature, water surface temperature of wetland or lakes, vegetation cover including forest and crops and thermal inertia at all hours.