ISRO broke its own record by successfully launching 20 satellites into space with the 36th flight of the PSLV. It carried a Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 17 foreign satellites and two student-made satellites. In the last 20 years, ISRO has launched 59 Indian and 74 foreign satellites.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched the 36th flight of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). This time around, the 727.5 kg Cartosat-2 (earth observation satellite) Series Satellite along with 19 co-passenger satellites were successfully launched. Since 1996, ISRO has launched 59 Indian satellites and 74 foreign satellites, including the current launch.
Importance of the current launch
This is the first time that the PSLV has successfully launched 20 different satellites in a single launch. The previous record was launching 10 satellites in a single launch in 2008. The 20 satellites comprise a Cartosat-2, along with 19 co-passenger satellites. Out of the 19, two--SATHYABAMASAT weighing 1.5 kg and SWAYAM weighing 1 kg--are university/academic institute satellites and were built with the involvement of students from Sathyabama University, Chennai and College Of Engineering, Pune, respectively. The remaining 17 co-passenger satellites were international customer satellites from Canada (2), Germany (1), Indonesia (1) and the United States (13). The total weight of all the 20 satellites carried is about 1288 kg.
According to a press release by ISRO, the imagery sent by the Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.
With this successful launch, the total number of satellites launched by PSLV has reached 113, of which 39 are Indian and the remaining 74 from abroad.
59 Indian Satellites launched in the last 20 years, and 35 are operational
During the last 20 years (1996 till date), ISRO has launched 59 Indian satellites, which include:
As per government information, 35 satellites are operational in the country currently, out of which 13 are communication satellites, 13 are earth observation satellites, seven are navigational satellites and two are space science satellites.
74 foreign satellites launched in the last 20 years
In the last 20 years, ISRO has launched 74 foreign satellites from 20 different countries. Of these, 17 are from the USA, 10 each from Germany and Canada, eight from Singapore, six from UK, three each from Indonesia and Japan, and two each from Austria, Denmark, France and Switzerland. One satellite each of 9 other countries was also launched by ISRO.
ISRO also has MoUs with 37 different countries for exploration and use of outer space. The MoUs include various fields such as joint development of advanced scientific instruments to observe earth and universe; joint realisation of satellite missions; jointly carrying out calibration and validation experiments etc. ISRO has agreements to launch 25 foreign satellites in 2016-17 from seven different countries.
ISRO earned a revenue of 80.6 million Euros from 2013-15
The commercial arm of ISRO, Antrix, has earned a total revenue of 80.6 million from satellite launches during 2013 and 2015. Antrix earned 6.9 million Euros in 2013, 18.2 million Euros in 2014 and 55.5 million Euros in 2015. As per government data, Antrix is likely to earn a revenue of USD 4.54 million and Euros 63.91 million by launching 25 satellites from seven countries during 2015-2017.
ISRO’s ambitious space program for 2022
The following space program is proposed to be executed by the year 2022:
Image Source: ISRO
