Microsat-R was claimed to be an experimental imaging satellite manufactured by

DRDO The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, ...

and launched by Indian Space Research Organisation on 24 January 2019 for military use. Satellite served as a target for ASAT test on 27 March 2019.

Launch

Microsat-R, along with KalamsatV2 as piggy-back, was launched on 24 January 2019 at 23:37 hrs from First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The launch marks the 46th flight of

PSLV The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites ...

. After 13 minutes 26 seconds in flight, Microsat-R was injected at targeted altitude of about 277.2 km. This was the first flight of a new variant of PSLV called PSLV-DL with two strap-ons, each carrying 12.2-tonne of solid propellant.

Anti-satellite test

Microsat-R served as target for Indian ASAT experiment on March 27, 2019. The impact generated more than 400 pieces of orbital debris with 24 having apogee higher than

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

orbit. According to initial assessment by DRDO some of the debris (depending on size and trajectory) should re-enter in 45 days. A spokesperson from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

disagreed, saying the debris could last for years because the

solar minimum Solar minimum is the regular period of least solar activity in the Sun's 11-year solar cycle. During solar minimum, sunspot and solar flare activity diminishes, and often does not occur for days at a time. On average, the solar cycle takes abou ...

had contracted the atmosphere that would otherwise cause the debris to reenter. Analysis from a leading space trajectory and environment simulation company AGI has also came to same conclusion that few debris fragments will take more than a year to come down and other debris fragments might pose a risk to other satellites and ISS and these results were also presented in the 35th Space Symposium at Colorado Springs. As of March 2022, only one catalogued piece of debris from Microsat-R remains in orbit: COSPAR 2019-006DE, SATCAT 44383. This final piece decayed from orbit 14 June 2022.

References

External links

* {{Orbital launches in 2019 Earth observation satellites of India Spacecraft launched by India in 2019 Spacecraft launched by PSLV rockets January 2019 events in India Intentionally destroyed artificial satellites Military equipment introduced in the 2010s Satellite collisions

Launch

Anti-satellite test

See also

References

External links