India will launch a rocket carrying 104 satellites in a record single mission on Wednesday, as its space agency looks to zoom ahead in the commercial space race.
The rocket is set to blast off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota tomorrow
The rocket will launch the 714-kg Cartosat-2 satellite for earth observation and 103 co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 664kg, at lift-off. The satellites will be placed in an orbit 505km above the Earth.
Of the 101 international co-passenger nano-satellites, 96 are from the US, and one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The weight of all the satellites at launch will total 1,378 kg. The PSLV-C37 will also carry two Isro nano satellites — INS-1A and INS-1B.
If successful, India will set a world record as the first country to launch the most satellites in one go and leave behind Russia, which launched 39 satellites in a single mission in June 2014.
“We are making a century by launching over 100 satellites at one go,” S. Somnath, a Director at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was quoted as saying at a science convention in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Another official said that most of the 100 foreign satellites were meant for commercial purposes while the Indian satellites were intended to observe and measure the Earth’s atmosphere.
The business of putting commercial satellites into space for a fee is growing as phone, Internet and other companies as well as countries seek greater and more high-tech communications.
India is competing with other international players for a greater share of that launch market, and is known for its low-cost space programme.
Last June, India set a national record after it successfully launched a rocket carrying 20 satellites, including 13 from the US.
In May, it successfully launched its first mini space shuttle as it joined the global race to make reusable rockets.
It sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars in 2013 at a cost of just $73 million, compared with NASA’s Maven Mars mission which had a $671 million price tag.
ISRO is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus.
“We are looking at other planets that we can explore… two of them are Jupiter and Venus,” M. Nageswara Rao, an Associate Director at ISRO, said Wednesday, adding “it may take few years from now”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often hailed India’s budget space technology, quipping in 2014 that a rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit had cost less to make than Hollywood film “Gravity”.
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