India readying for Manned Space Mission!

This launch has a lot of importance for many reasons:

1. it was the first after the infamous GSLV launch failure.
2. it helps India to work on the re-entry technology
3. it improves the earth monitoring capabilities of India (euphemism for “spying”!)

India took the first baby step towards a manned space mission with the successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Wednesday. All the four satellites of the PSLV-C7 were successfully injected into orbit at an altitude of 638.7 km, 949.8 seconds after the lift off.

The Rs 300 crore mission launching the 295 tonne white rocket into space is an important milestone for India, given the fact that this is the country’s first attempt at re-entry technology, in which a satellite is launched into space and brought back to Earth after two weeks to withstand the high temperatures generated while returning to earth.

ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair said after the launch: “We have done it successfully. We have put all four satellites into the required orbit. It was a textbook mission. Our boys have done well.” ISRO hopes that this launch will help erase memories of the failure of the Geostationary Launch Vehicle (GSLV) launch last July.

The PSLV C7 carries four satellites – the 680 kg Indian remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2 and the 550 kg Space Capsule Recovery Equipment (SRE-1), Indonesia’s LAPAN-TUBSAT and Argentina’s six kg nanosatellite, PEHUENSAT-1. India hopes to have the world’s sharpest civilian eye in the sky with this launch.

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Technorati : ISRO, India, PSLV, Space