PSLV C37
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PSLV-C37 was the 39th mission of the Indian
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle 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) satellite ...
(PSLV) program and its 16th mission in the XL configuration undertaken by the
Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...
(ISRO). Launched on 15 February 2017 from the
Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The spaceport is located on an isl ...
at
Sriharikota Sriharikota () is a barrier island off the Bay of Bengal coast located in the Shar Project settlement of Tirupati district in Andhra Pradesh, India. It houses the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, one of the two satellite launch centres in India (the ...
,
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...
, the rocket successfully carried and deployed a record number of 104
satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
s in
Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...
s in a single mission, breaking the earlier record of launching 37 satellites by a Russian Dnepr rocket on 19 June 2014. This record was held until the launch of the Transporter-1 mission by SpaceX on 24 January 2021 which launched 143 satellites. Its primary payload was the Cartosat-2D
Earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...
, while the secondary payloads included a total of 103
nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...
s, including two experiments from ISRO. The 101 international satellites were launched as part of a commercial arrangement between several firms and ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited, run under the auspices of the Indian Government's
Department of Space The Department of Space (DoS) is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space programme. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space pr ...
.


Launch

PSLV-C37 was launched from the
First Launch Pad Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The spaceport is located on an isla ...
of
Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The spaceport is located on an isl ...
in Sriharikota at 09:28
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on 15 February 2017. It was the 39th flight of the PSLV and the sixteenth in the XL configuration. It carried a total of 104 satellites including the primary payload Cartosat-2D. The launcher started placing the satellites into polar Sun-synchronous orbits one after another after a flight of 16 minutes and 48 seconds. It first ejected the satellite Cartosat-2D at an altitude of approximately , with 97.46 degrees inclination, followed by the two ISRO
nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...
s INS-1A and INS-1B. It then took 11 minutes for PSLV C-37 to place the remaining 101 "co-passenger" satellites into their intended orbits. Soon after separation from the launch vehicle, the two solar arrays on board the Cartosat-2D satellite were automatically deployed. Afterwards, ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at
Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
took control of the satellite. "In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide
remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...
services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras," an ISRO statement read. The mission lasted 29 minutes. Originally, PSLV-C37 was set to launch on 27 January 2017 with 83 satellites. With the addition of twenty more satellites to the payload, the schedule was changed to 15 February 2017. On October 6 2024, the upper stage of the rocket (PS4) Re-entered the
atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...
at about 15:48:25 UTC. The corresponding impact point is located in the
North Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
, off the coast of
Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
.


Mission overview

* Mass: ** ''Total liftoff weight:'' ** ''Payload weight:'' * Overall height: * Propellant: ** ''Stage 1:''
Solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...
HTPB based ** ''Stage 2:''
Liquid Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...
UH 25 UH 25 is a fuel mixture for rockets. It was developed for the European Ariane 2–4 launch vehicles. UH 25 was developed after a disaster during flight 2 of the Ariane 1 rocket. During launch, one of the four Viking engines on the first stage deve ...
+ ** ''Stage 3:''
Solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...
HTPB based ** ''Stage 4:''
Liquid Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...
MMH + MON-3 * Altitude: * Maximum velocity: (recorded at time of Cartosat-2D separation) * Inclination: 97.46° * Period: 94.72 minutes * Launch azimuth: 140° The rocket launched Cartosat-2D and 103
nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...
s: two from India, one each from Kazakhstan, Israel, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, along with 96 from the United States – 88 Dove satellites and 8 LEMUR satellites. The three Indian satellites launched were Cartosat-2D, INS-1A, and INS-1B. Arrangements for the launch of the 104 satellites were made between ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited, under the auspices of the Indian Government's
Department of Space The Department of Space (DoS) is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space programme. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space pr ...
, and the international customers. The Cartosat-2D weighs , and its design life is five years. The two Indian nanosatellites, designated INS-1A and INS-1B, each carried two payloads from ISRO's
Space Applications Centre Space Applications Centre (SAC) is an institution of research in Ahmedabad under the aegis of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is one of the major centres of ISRO that is engaged in the research, development and demonstration ...
and the
Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems (LEOS) is a research lab belonging to the Indian Space Research Organisation. It involves in design and development of optics and sensor modules that can be deployed either onboard satellite or with the lau ...
. INS-1A carried a Surface Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function Radiometer (SBR) and a Single Event Upset Monitor (SEUM). INS-1B carried an Earth Exosphere Lyman-Alpha Analyzer (EELA) and Origami Camera as payloads. They weigh and respectively and have been designed with a mission life of six months. An ISRO official said: "The nano satellites are an experimental class of satellites introduced by ISRO because there are requests from academic institutions to use them for data collection. The universities do not have the knowledge to build satellites and tend to take a long time… We want them to focus on the instruments as we can provide the nano satellite bus." The 103 co-passenger satellites weighed approximately , bringing the total payload mass to . The total launch mass of the rocket was . Among the 96 satellites belonging to US companies, 88
CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit,, url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5418c831e4b0fa4ecac1bacd/t/5f24997b6deea10cc52bb016/1596234122437/CDS+REV14+2020-07-3 ...
s were owned by
Planet Labs Planet Labs PBC (formerly Planet Labs, Inc. and Cosmogia, Inc.) is a publicly traded American Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint tren ...
, a private
Earth imaging Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell i ...
company based in San Francisco, California. Weighing roughly each, the satellites separated from the rocket in different directions to avoid collision. With the launch of PSLV-C37, Planet Labs increased its fleet of satellites to 143, which was the largest private satellite fleet in operation at the time. Eight Lemur-2 satellites belonging to
Spire Global Spire Global, Inc. is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the tracking of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites, such as the tracking of maritime, aviation and weather patterns. The comp ...
are to provide vessel tracking and weather measurement services. These satellites have a short lifetime of about two to three years requiring replacement at regular intervals. PSLV-C37 used the
rocket engine nozzle A rocket engine nozzle is a propelling nozzle (usually of the de Laval type) used in a rocket engine to expand and accelerate combustion products to high supersonic velocities. Simply: propellants pressurized by either pumps or high pressure ...
manufactured by
Vijayawada Vijayawada ( ), formerly known by its colonial name Bezawada, is the second largest city and a major commercial hub in the Andhra Pradesh state of India. The city forms an integral part of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region and is situated on th ...
, from Andhra Pradesh-based company Resins and Allied Productions (RAP). This is the 100th nozzle manufactured by RAP to be used in a PSLV. Several components of PSLV-C37 were manufactured by
Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Limited, abbreviated as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate, with interests in industrial technology, heavy industry, engineering, construction, manufacturing, power, information technology, defence and financial se ...
at its advanced composite facility in
Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is a city situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district. The city is named for its abundance of banyan ...
, Gujarat. The honeycomb deck panels used for mounting the heat shield and electronic packages on the upper stage of the PSLV, the antenna mount structure, and the diameter bull gear were all manufactured by L&T.


Cost

ISRO released a statement stating that it will recover half of the mission's cost from the foreign countries whose satellites it launched.


Record

With this launch, ISRO created a new world record for the largest number of satellites ever launched on a single rocket, surpassing the previous record of Russia, which in 2014 launched 37 satellites using Dnepr rocket. This record set by ISRO stood until 24 January 2021, when
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
launched the Transporter-1 mission on a
Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...
rocket carrying 143 satellites into orbit.


Usage

Imagery from the primary satellite, Cartosat-2D, is used for various
land information system A Land Information System (LIS) is a geographic information system for cadastral and land-use mapping, typically used by local governments.Wade, T. and Sommer, S. eds. A to Z GIS' A LIS consists of an accurate, current and reliable land record ca ...
and
geographical information system A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...
applications in India. Data collected by the two Indian nanosatellites—the INS-1A and INS-1B—will be used by ISRO's Space Applications Centre and the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems. The Dove satellites from the US are used to photograph the Earth for commercial, environmental, and humanitarian purposes. Eight LEMUR satellites, weighing each, carried two different payloads, namely SENSE for vessel tracking purposes and STRATOS for atmospheric measurements. Al Farabi-1 satellite built by the students of
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (), also called KazNU or KazGU, is a national research university located in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Named after philosopher and scholar al-Farabi, it is one of the country's largest universities. KazNU is Kaza ...
, Nayif-1 satellite built by the
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC, ) is a Government of Dubai, Dubai Government organization working on the UAE space program, which includes various Satellite, space satellites projects, such as the Emirates Mars Mission, the Emirates ...
,
Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...
, and PEASSS satellite built by an all-European consortium of Partners, are technology demonstrator satellites whereas
DIDO-2 DIDO-2 (COSPAR 2017-008BE) is a nano-satellite of the Israeli / Swiss company SpacePharma. The nano-satellite is part of a research project whose goal is to test a miniaturized end-to-end pharmaceutical laboratory (called ) in space under microgravi ...
built by
SpacePharma SpacePharma is a Swiss–Israeli biotechnology company with a primary focus on conducting scientific experiments in Weightlessness#Commercial applications, microgravity conditions. The company was the first fully private, commercially oriented ...
from Switzerland is a micro-research satellite. BGUSAT (Ben Gurion University SATellite) built by
Israel Aerospace Industries Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI; ), is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both military and civilian usage. It has 14,000 employees as of 2021. IAI is state-owned by the government ...
(IAI) in cooperation with
Ben Gurion University Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) (, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Named after Israeli national founder David Ben-Gurion, the university was founded in 1969 and currently has f ...
is designed as a research satellite. The satellites objectives are to explore atmospheric and weather phenomena in the
infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...
wavelength by imaging atmospheric gaseous contents and atmospheric glow.


References


External links


PSLV-C37 Lift off and Onboard Camera Video
{{PSLV Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle Spacecraft launched by India in 2017 Rocket launches in 2017