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Satnews Daily
July 12th, 2010

ISRO... Cartosat-2B Off, Off + Away With Four Friends (Launch)



Launch photo courtesy of ISRO
[SatNews] India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) successfully launched the CARTOSAT-2B satellite on July 12, 2010, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launch of PSLV - C15 was the 16th consecutive successful flight of PSLV.

After a smooth countdown of 51 hrs, the vehicle lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at the opening of the launch window at 09.22 hrs (IST). After about 20 minutes of flight time, India`s advanced remote sensing satellite, CARTOSAT-2B, along with four auxiliary satellites, was successfully injected into its circular orbit of 637 km with an orbital inclination of 98.1o. The preliminary flight data indicates that all major flight events involving stage ignition and burnouts, performance of solid and liquid stages, indigenously developed advanced mission computers and telemetry systems were exactly as predicted.

In addition to CARTOSAT-2B, four auxiliary satellites were also carried aloft, namely STUDSAT a pico-satellite, weighing in at less than 1 kg, that was jointly built by students from a consortium of seven engineering colleges form Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Two nano satellites, NLS 6.1 and NLS 6.2 from the University of Toronto, Canada, and ALSAT-2A, a micro-satellite from the Algerian Space Agency.