Earth Observation Satellite Hysis & 30 Foreign Satellites Launched

India’s Hyper-Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS) was injected into a 645 km sun-synchronous polar orbit 17 minutes and 19 seconds after the lift-off, as Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C43) of Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) lifted off at 9:57:30 (IST) from First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota on 29 November 2018. Later, 30 foreign satellites were injected into their intended orbit after restarting the vehicle’s fourth stage engines twice. The last satellite was injected into its designated orbit 1 hour and 49 minutes after the lift-off. HysIS Project Director Suresh K. said that the satellite is performing normally after the launch.

HysIS had the company of one micro and 29 Nano-satellites from eight countries, including 23 from USA and one each from Australia, Canada, Columbia, Finland, Malaysia, Netherlands and Spain. The total weight of these satellites was about 261.50 kg. Satellites from Australia, Columbia, Malaysia and Spain were flown aboard PSLV for the first time. These foreign satellites launched are part of commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited and customers.

• HysIS is an earth observation satellite built around ISRO’s Mini Satellite2 (IMS-2) bus weighing about 380kg.
• The mission life of the satellite is five years.
• HysIS’s two solar arrays were deployed automatically after separation and
• ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network at Bengaluru gained control of the satellite.
• Satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration in the next few days.
• HysIS is to study the earth’s surface in both the visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Data from the satellite will be used for a wide range of applications including agriculture, forestry, soil/geological environments, coastal zones and inland waters, etc.

ISRO Chairman Dr K. Sivan said, “HysIS is a state-of-the-art satellite with many indigenous components developed by SAC, Ahmedabad and SCL, Chandigarh”, and added that the main purpose of the HysIS is to exactly identify the objects on the surface of the earth with high precision and resolution, and “HysIS will start sending images from the fifth day of its injection. With HysIS, we have 47 operational satellites that are active now in their orbits, meant for applications like communications, earth observation, scientific studies and navigation”.

PSLV is a four stage launch vehicle with a large solid rocket motor forming the first stage, an earth storable liquid stage as the second stage, a high performance solid rocket motor as third stage and a liquid stage with engines as fourth stage.

It was the 45th flight of PSLV and 13th one in the Core Alone configuration on 29 November 2018. So far, the PSLV has launched 44 Indian and nine satellites built by students from Indian universities. The vehicle has also launched 269 international customer satellites. In the last PSLV launch on September 16, PSLV-C42 had successfully launched two commercial satellites from UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited..