The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into sun-synchronous orbits, a service that was, until the advent of the PSLV in 1993, commercially available only from Russia. PSLV can also launch small size satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO).
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is the space agency of the Government of India headquartered in the city of Bangalore. Its vision is to "harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration."
SPADEX (Space Docking Experiment) is an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) technology mission to demonstrate autonomous docking between 2 spacecraft in orbit. The mission will involve two spacecraft (Chaser and Target) rendezvous and docking together, plus testing attitude control of the combined spacecraft under docked conditions. The Chaser and Target spacecraft will then be separated for operating other payload. The mission is critical to develop rendezvous and docking abilities for ISRO’s future human spaceflight and lunar sample return missions.
Low Earth OrbitTDS-01 (Technology Demonstration Satellite-01) is an Indian geostationary orbit technology demonstration satellite carrying payloads for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s Institute of Plasma Research, Gandhinagar and the CSIR-CEERI, Pilani. Payloads to be tested included an internally developed 300 mN electric powered thrusters, atomic clocks, travelling wave tube amplifiers (TWTA) & a quantum communication suite (QuTDS).
Geostationary Transfer OrbitScatSat-1 is a microsatellite of 371 kg and a mission life of 5 years. It is tasked to provide weather forecasting, cyclone prediction, and tracking services to India. This launch will also carry 7 other satellites, the 117kg Alsat-2B, the 103kg Alsat-1B & the 7kg Alsat-1N earth observation satellites for Algerian Space Agency, the 44kg Pathfinder-1 earth imager for Blacksky, the 8kg CanX-7 deorbiter for UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory, the 10kg Pratham Ionospheric Tomographer for IIT Bombay and the 5.25kg PiSat earth imager for PES University.
Low Earth OrbitKalpana-1 was the first dedicated meteorological satellite launched by Indian Space Research Organisation using Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on 12 September 2002. The satellite is three-axis stabilized and is powered by solar panels, getting up to 550 watts (0.74 hp) of power. The METSAT bus was used as the basis for the Chandrayaan lunar orbiter mission of 2008.
Geostationary OrbitTechnology Experiment Satellite (TES) is Indian remote sensing and photo-reconnaissance satellite. The 1108 kg satellite carries a one-meter resolution panchromatic camera is an experimental satellite to demonstrate and validate, in orbit, technologies that could be used in the future satellites of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was successfully placed in 572 km Sun-synchronous orbit on 22 October 2001 using the PSLV-C3. The PSLV-C3 also injected two more satellites: PROBA, a Belgian satellite and BIRD, a German satellite.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitIRS-P4 (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite) or Oceansat is the first indian satellite primarily built for Ocean applications. Kitsat (Korean Institute of Technology Satellite 3), renamed on orbit as Uribyol 3, was the first Korean satellite in true sense and was launched by an Indian PSLV-G (2) rocket in May 1999.
Polar OrbitIRS 1C and 1D (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite) were the second version of the series of indigenous state-of-art remote sensing satellites. Skipper was an international project initiated by BMDO to measure the bow-shock UV emissions from reentering bodies at different speeds and heights.
Low Earth OrbitIRS-1E (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite) satellite was an experimental Indian earth observing satellite, which was derived from the engineering model of IRS-1A incorporating a Monocular Electro-Optical Stereo Scanner developed by DLR, Germany, and a LISS-I camera similar to that on IRS-1A.
Low Earth Orbit