Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will Sunday launch the Israel-built Singaporean satellite DS-SAR, along with six other Singaporean private customer payloads, at 6.30 am IST.
The satellites will be launched aboard the PSLV rocket, as part of the PSLV-C56/DS-SAR mission, from the first launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
The primary payload is the DS-SAR, a radar-imaging Earth observation satellite which carries a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
The other payloads are Galassia-2 from National University of Singapore (NUS), NuLIoN from the Singapore-based company NuSpace, ORB-12 Strider from the Singaporean space-tech company Aliena, and three from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) — VELOX-AM, ARCADE, and SCOOB-II.
The mission was facilitated by NewSpace India Limited, an independent Department of Space body that is responsible for procuring customer contracts for ISRO.
It will be the 58th flight of the PSLV and the 17th in the CA or Core Alone configuration — launched without any of the six strap-on boosters and with less propellant in its upper stage.
The payloads will all be inserted after 1486.42 seconds from launch or approximately 24 minutes.
After all the satellites are deployed into orbit, the upper stage of the rocket will be manoeuvred into a lower orbit. The 3-metre-long rocket remnant is expected to spiral and eventually burn up in the atmosphere without leading to space debris in orbit, as part of a deorbiting exercise conducted by ISRO to prevent accumulation of space debris.
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About the payloads
The primary payload is the 352-kg DS-SAR, an Earth observation satellite used for government and military as well as commercial purposes.
It was developed through a partnership between Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and major defence engineering group ST Engineering.
It carries an imaging component built by ST Electronics, a part of ST Engineering. It will be used for its high-responsiveness imagery for various purposes, including geospatial services as well as detecting fires and oil spills.
It carries an SAR built by IAI for all-weather any-time coverage, and is able to image at 1 metre resolution.
It is meant to work in tandem with the 2015-launched TeLEOS-1 minisatellite that is in orbit.
VELOX-AM is a 23-kg experimental micro-satellite built by NTU’s undergraduate students in the satellite programme. It will be a technology demonstrator for additive manufacturing payloads.
The 24-kg ARCADE (Atmospheric Coupling and Dynamics Explorer), also known as INSPIRESAT 4 (International Satellite Program in Research and Technology), is also an experimental micro-satellite built by students from the same programme.
It will perform ionospheric measurements (electron density, electron and ion temperature) with plasma and carries an iodine-based solid propellant.
SCOOB-II is a 3U CubeSat (square-shaped miniature satellite) weighing 4kg, and the second built in the Student Satellite Series at NTU’s Satellite Research Centre; SCOOB-1 was launched one year ago. It is designed to function for six months.
The 3.5-kg Galassia-2 is also a 3U CubeSat developed by undergraduate students from NUS and will study the earth’s ionosphere. It is an educational satellite and will perform an inter-satellite link with TELEOS1.
The satellite will demonstrate the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) multispectral imagery for space applications.
The ORB-12 Strider is a 12U CubeSat built by UK-based OrbAstro/Orbital Astronautics for Singaporean Aliena-Aurora Propulsion Technologies.
The satellite weighs 13 kg and carries a range of payload instruments for testing in orbit, such as Aliena’s MUlti-Staged Ignition Compact (MUSIC) Hall thruster, an inter-satellite optical transceiver, a test SAR, and a thermal management system.
It carries the world’s first multi-modal all-electric propulsion engine, and will also demonstrate propulsion system functioning tailored for small satellite constellations.
The 3-kg NuLIoN is a 3U CubeSat developed by NuSpace for Internet of Things and increased internet connectivity across Singapore as well as the rest of Southeast Asia through a low-Earth (close to Earth) equatorial constellation.
It will also function as a payload testing bed in space for other customer experiments.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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