ISRO enters into commercial launch market by placing 36 ‘OneWeb’ satellites into orbit

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh): In a historic maiden commercial flight, an Indian heavy-lift rocket GSLV MkIII – renamed for this mission as LVM3 M2, successfully placed 36 satellites of UK-based OneWeb into orbit’

Slated for launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on August 7, the ‘baby rocket’ has been fully designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) facilities in Thiruvananthapuram with industry participation.

The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here in Thumba, which is ISRO’s lead unit on launch vehicles, was responsible for the design and development of the three-stage SSLV. The Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Valiyamala in the district developed the Velocity Trimming Module (VTM) for the SSLV, VSSC director S. Unnikrishnan Nair says

Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday launched the country's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) weighing 110 tonnes from the first launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, about 135 km from Chennai .India's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) launches for the first time, on Aug. 6, 2022. ( Image credit: ISRO) Instead of placing the satellites in a circular orbit 221 miles (356 kilometers) above Earth, the rocket left them in an orbit that ranged from 221 miles to as close as 47 miles (76 km).

Despite successfully launching India's brand new Rs 56 crore rocket on its maiden flight, ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) mission ended up being unsuccessful. The reason for the mission being a failure is that the two satellites transported onboard the rocket were rendered unusable.

The SSLV was developed with the aim of launching small satellites commercially at drastically reduced price and higher launch rate as compared to Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

PSLV is designed mainly to deliver earth observation or remote sensing satellites, whereas, GSLV has been designed for launching communication satellites. GSLV delivers satellites into a higher elliptical orbit, Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO).

After the launch, ISRO chairman S Somanath said the SSLV-D1 performed as expected at all stages. "In the terminal phase of the mission, some data loss is occurring. We are analysing the data to conclude the final outcome of the mission with respect to achieving a stable orbit," he said.

In the case of a launch vehicle, the “action” is the flow out the rear of the vehicle of exhaust gases produced by the combustion of the vehicle's fuel in its rocket engine, and the “reaction” is the pressure, called thrust, applied to the internal structure of the launch vehicle that pushes it in the direction ...

Baby Rocket