ISRO's 2nd commercial success in a week

Sriharikota (AP): In its second successful commercial mission in a week, ISRO launched three foreign satellites in precise orbit from the spaceport here on Thursday onboard PSLV C53, with the space agency's trusted launch vehicle once again living up to its reputation of being a reliable rocket.

PSLV-C53 is the second dedicated commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO which had on June 23 launched GSAT-24 in its first "demand-driven" communication satellite mission post space sector reforms, leasing the entire capacity on board to Direct-to-Home (DTH) service provider Tata Play.

On Thursday, the four-stage, 44.4 metre tall PSLV-C53 that blasted off from the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, placed the three Singapore satellites--DS-EO, NeuSAR and SCOOB-1 in intended orbit of 570 km.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath confirmed that the mission achieved its intended objective, saying the rocket placed the three customer satellites "in the precise orbit of 570 km with a 10 degree inclination" and congratulated NSIL for accomplishing "yet another major mission this month itself," the earlier one being the GSAT launch last week.

"With today's mission, all these three satellites are placed in the right orbit," Somanath said. After the primary mission, the PSLV 4th stage is going to "write some poems in orbit," he said, referring to the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM). POEM is going to be functional after this, taking over the control of the primary mission computer to another one and the fourth stage will be powered, generating power on board and will be stabilised with altitude control and host some experiments by some of young startups enabled by InSpace, Somanath, also Secretary, Department of Space, said. Mission Director SR Biju described the launch as "wonderful" and said the launch vehicle injected the three "precious" satellites in the desired orbit. The idea for this mission was conceptualised in a record time of three months and "it is effectively two missions rolled into one mission," he added.

D Radhakrishnan, CMD, NSIL, said their association with Singapore customer has been quite long.

Earlier, the launch vehicle lifted off at 6.02 PM at the end of the 25-hour countdown.