How India's PSLV-C28 launch breaks new ground in international space business
Space business could not get more international than this - an Indian rocket launching three commercial satellites built by a British company for the use of China's first commercial satellite company.
This is what Sriharikota - India's spaceport - witnessed on Friday night when the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) zoomed into space in a perfect, textbook launch, scripting another landmark in India's space journey. It establishes the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), along with its commercial arm Antrix Corporation, as a formidable player in the commercial launch market.
The flight of PSLV lasting 19.16 minutes was a fully commercial launch. The primacy payload of this mission was three satellites of a British customer, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), while the auxiliary payload consisted of two mini satellites. The ISRO has been launching satellites for foreign customers for the past 15 years, but this was the heaviest ever commercial launch. The five satellites weighed a total of 1440kg, with three identical ones weighing 447kg each. The heaviest foreign satellite launched on-board PSLV till now was the 714kg SPOT-7 of France launched in 2014.
Though the three satellites have been built by the British company, their end user is a Chinese company. The three earth-watching satellites are owned by DMC International Imaging, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SSTL. The satellites are part of a constellation called Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). China's Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company (21AT) has leased all three spacecraft under a seven-year arrangement it has with the DMC International Imaging. This contract between the DMC and 21AT is worth 110 million pounds. Antrix has, however, not revealed the worth of its tripartite agreement with SSTL and DMC.
The perfect triple satellite launch from Sriharikota has pleased the president and CEO of 21AT, Mme Wu Shuang, who was quoted by SSTL as saying, "I am very glad that the three satellites are in orbit and have started communication with the ground station. It is the first step of our long march and we are looking forward to the commencement of our BJII data services following the completion of the commissioning of the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation."
The PSLV was conceived to be a workhorse launcher for the ISRO. With 29 consecutive successful launches, it has proved to be much more than that. "PSLV is now an international workhorse space launcher", declared Kunhi Krishnan, director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre and former project director of PSLV, after the launch on Friday night. In all, Antrix has provided launch services on-board PSLV to 40 customer satellites from 19 countries including France, Germany, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore and Korea.
The PSLV-C28 that injected five British satellites was technically more challenging than previous missions of the PSLV. Because of heavier cargo to be carried, high-end version of the PSLV called PSLV XL was deployed. Of the five satellites, three were identical earth observation satellites and they had to be deployed in a 647km Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO). In order to accommodate three satellites with a height of three metres, the ISRO designed a circular launcher adaptor and a triangular deck called Multiple Satellite Adapter for this mission.
The launch was important on another count. It was the first major mission under the new leadership at the ISRO, chairman AS Kiran Kumar, and also new project leaders of PSLV, Satish Dhawan Space Centre and other units of the ISRO. It only shows that the space agency has robust systems and mechanisms that work smoothly even when new project teams and leaders take over.