The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on the 17th of December, lifted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C50 (PSLV-C50) rocket laden with the country’s communication satellite CMS-01.
The communication satellite formerly known as GSAT-12R lifted off from the rocket port at Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC,) in Andhra Pradesh.
The rocket with India’s 42nd communication satellite CMS-01 lifted-off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota at 3.41 P.M.
CMS-01 has a life span of seven years and is envisaged for providing services in Extended-C Band of the frequency spectrum.
The CMS-01 would be a replacement for GSAT-12 that weighed 1,410 kg and was launched on July 11, 2011 with a mission life of eight years. This is the first communication satellite that ISRO has sent up under its new naming scheme.
M. Annadurai, the retired as Director, U.R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), formerly ISRO Satellite Centre, said, “Nowadays satellites have multiple payloads for varied users and hence a thematic satellite may be a misnomer and ISRO might have decided to go for a generic name.”
It was PSLV’s 52nd flight from the Sriharikota spaceport and the rocket’s 22nd flight with an XL variant of strap-ons.
Around 20 minutes after lifting off from the second launch pad, PSLV-C50 successfully injected the satellite into a sub-geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).
The satellite would be moved to its specific orbit on December 21 after a series of manoeuvres using its propulsion system.
Stay tuned for further updates.
