Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has begun the 59-hour countdown for the launch of 6 Singapore satellites onboard its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C29, from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

PSLV is scheduled to launch at 6.00 pm on December 16, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The 59 hr countdown activity of PSLV-C29/TeLEOS-1 Mission has started at 07:00 hr IST, Monday, December 14, 2015.

This would be PSLV’s 32nd flight carrying satellites. Antrix Corporation Ltd., the commercial arm of ISRO, has provided launch services in PSLV for 51 customer satellites from 20 countries. Of the six being carried on PSLv C29, TeLEOS-1 is the primary satellite weighing 400kg whereas the other five satellites include two micro-satellites and three nano-satellites. These would be launched into a 550-km circular orbit inclined at 15 degrees to the equator. TeLEOS-1 is the first Singapore commercial earth observation satellite and would be launched into a low Earth orbit for “remote sensing” applications.

Russia’s newest defence satellite EKS Kosmos-2510 was successfully launched into space.

It was launched using Russian Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome which is a military facility in north-western Russia’s Arkhangelsk region.

After placing it in dedicated orbit, the control of satellite has been passed to the Titov Main Space Centre of Russia’s Space Forces.

 

Points to note

This successful launch marked the sixth consecutive space mission to lift off from Plesetsk in year 2015. It was the fourth launch using a Soyuz booster and overall 13th launch of the Soyuz rocket family in 2015.