Indian Space agency ISRO is planning to launch on February 28 Brazilian Amazonia 1 satellites and 3 Indian payloads including one built by a home-grown start-up in its first mission in 2021. The satellites are slated to be launched onboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-51 at 10:28 a.m. from the Sriharikota spaceport, over 100 kilometres from Chennai.
Amazonia 1, reportedly the first Earth observation satellite entirely developed by Brazil is the primary payload. ‘Anand’, ‘Satish Dhawan’ satellite and ‘UNITYsat’ will be the co-passengers. ‘Anand’ is built by Indian space startup, ‘Pixxel’ and ‘Satish Dhawan’ satellite by Chennai-based Space Kidz India.
K Sivan, secretary in the Department of Space and Chairman of Bengaluru headquartered ISRO, confirmed the PSLV-C51 schedule to PTI on Friday.
Unity set is a combination of three satellites designed and built as a joint development by Jeppiaar Institute of Technology, G.H Raisoni College of Engineering and Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology.
“PSLV-C51 marks the launch of the country’s first Commercial Private Remote Sensing satellite on an ISRO PSLV rocket,” an ISRO official said. Sivan had earlier described the upcoming mission as “special for us special for the entire country and beginning of a new era of space reforms” “We are elated with the fact that India’s first commercial private satellite will now launch on an Indian rocket. This isn’t just a proud moment for us as an organization but also as citizens to work without nations capabilities” added Pixxel CEO, Awais Ahmed.
The ‘Satish Dhawan’ named after former ISRO chairman aims to study space radiation and magnetosphere and demonstrate nanosatellite components which were in fact indigenously designed and developed. The satellite also tests the capabilities of LoRa technology in space which could be helpful for many applications in the future in short and M2M communication, added Space Kidz India.