India will launch 31 satellites, including the Earth observation spacecraft Cartosat on 10 January, from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, an official said on Saturday.
"We have tentatively scheduled the rocket launch at 9:30 am to carry Cartosat and other satellites, including 28 from the US and five other countries in a single mission," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Director Devi Prasad Karnik told IANS in Bengaluru.
The first space mission in 2018 onboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) comes four months after a similar rocket failed to deliver the country's eighth navigation satellite to the Earth's lower orbit on 31 August.
The sixth Cartosat in the second series and other satellites are integrated with the rocket at the spaceport. The mission launch board will decide the rocket’s lift-off time for the reverse countdown two days ahead.Prasad Karnik
The mission's payload will also include one each nano and micro satellite from India, besides Cartosat-2.
As an observational satellite, Cartosat will beam high-quality images for cartographic, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation and utility management like road network monitoring.
The previous two satellites in the Cartosat-2 series were launched on 23 June and 15 February, from the spaceport on the east coast, about 90 km up Chennai.
As a follow-on mission, Cartosat will also relay high resolution scene specific spot imageries with data from its panchromatic and multi-spectral cameras operating in time delay integration mode.
The space scientists are taking special measures to ensure the 44.4 metre rocket will sling the 720 kg Cartosat and other satellites one-after-one into their intended orbits.
The 31 August mission suffered a setback when the 320-tonne workhorse launcher (PSLV-C39) did not separate the heat shield to deliver the spare satellite in the Indian Remote Navigation Satellite Series (IRNSS-H) from its cone-shaped top-end.ISRO official
To make up for the lost time – when launches were held up for four months pending an inquiry into the 31 August mission failure – the space agency plans to have at least one launch a month in 2018.
We have lined up five-six launches in the first half of next year, including two for deploying GSAT-6A and GSAT-29 advanced communication satellites in the geo-synchronous orbit (36,000km above Earth).
The space agency will also launch its second lunar mission (Chandrayaan-2) to the moon, with an orbiter, lander and rover for the first time.
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