PSLV-C7 was a 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) rocket, launched on January 10, 2007, 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) 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 ...

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. The mission consisted of Space Capsule Recovery Experiment,

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister o ...

's first reentry mission,China View: India's first space capsule returns to earth
January 22, 2007 along with

Cartosat-2 Cartosat-2 was an Earth observation satellite in a Sun-synchronous orbit and the second of the Cartosat series of satellites. The satellite was built, launched and maintained by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Weighing around 68 ...

, an

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 ...

LAPAN-TUBsat Lapan- TUBSat is Indonesia’s first remote sensing satellite, made by the experts from National Institute of Aeronautics and Space ( Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional, Lapan) and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) Germany. The uses of t ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

's first

remote sensing 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 ...

, and

Pehuensat-1 Pehuensat-1 is a satellite built entirely in Argentina with educational objectives. It was launched on January 10, 2007 aboard a rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Satish Dhawan Space Center on the east coast of India. The assembly took ...

, an Argentine educational satellite. The mission was an important mission is the history 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) satellite ...

, because it had many new additions to the rocket. The mission also had the first use of Dual Launch Adapter, (DLA).

Speciality and Major Changes

* First reentry Experiment of

* Altitude based Day of Launch (DOL) wind biased steering program during Open Loop Guidance * Deletion of SITVC system of airlit strap-on. * PS1 SITVC Injectant loading reduced by 500 kg. * Use of externally fabricated nozzles for the two motors. * Use of Dual Launch Adapter (DLA) * First use of 2 ton liquid stage for fourth stage. * Video Imaging System to capture payloads (Cartosat-2 & SRE) and DLA separation events. * Internal vehicle length increased by 2.25 m with the Introduction of DLA. * Flight sequence modified for multiple satellite/DLA separation.

Launch

This was the tenth Launch of the

rocket. It launched at 03:53

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on January 10, 2007, from

. * The first stage, of six solid propellant strap-ones, of

HTPB Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) is an oligomer of butadiene terminated at each end with a hydroxyl functional group. It reacts with isocyanates to form polyurethane polymers. HTPB is a translucent liquid with a color similar to wax paper ...

fuel, ignited at Launch. They burned for 113 seconds and got disposed. * The second stage of

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 ...

and

N2O4 Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

fuel, got ignited at 113 seconds. This was followed by a

Heat shield In engineering, a heat shield is a component designed to protect an object or a human operator from being burnt or overheated by dissipating, reflecting, and/or absorbing heat. The term is most often used in reference to exhaust heat management a ...

separation and separation of PS2 at 264 seconds. * PS3 ignited at 265 seconds and separated at 513 seconds. * PS4 ignited at 533 seconda and cut off at 942 seconds. *

separated at 979 seconds at an altitude of 639 km. * Dual Launch Adapter separated at 1024 seconds * SRE separated at 1099 seconds at 641 km altitude. *

separated at 1169 seconds at an altitude of 642 km.

Payloads

SRE

The Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SCRE or more commonly SRE or SRE-1) is an Indian experimental

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

. It's the first step in their

Gaganyaan Gaganyaan (,, from Sanskrit: , "celestial" and , "craft, vehicle") is an Indian List of crewed spacecraft, crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being des ...

program of

which aim to send humans to space. It orbited the Earth for 12 days before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and splashing down into the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

at 04:16

on January 22. It also did Research on reusable

Thermal Protection System Atmospheric entry (sometimes listed as Vimpact or Ventry) is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. Atmospheric entry may be ''uncontrolled entr ...

, navigation, guidance and control, hypersonic aero-thermodynamics, management of communication blackout, deceleration and flotation system and tested recovery operations.

Cartosat-2 Cartosat-2 was an Earth observation satellite in a Sun-synchronous orbit and the second of the Cartosat series of satellites. The satellite was built, launched and maintained by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Weighing around 68 ...

is an

in a

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 ...

and the second of the

Cartosat The Cartosat is a series of Indian optical Earth observation satellites built and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The Cartosat series is a part of the Indian Remote Sensing Program. They are used for Earth's resource ...

series of satellites. It consists of a

panchromatic A panchromatic emulsion is a type of photographic emulsion that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, and produces a monochrome photograph—typically black and white. Most modern commercially available film is panchromatic, and the t ...

(PAN) camera that take black and white pictures of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

in the

visible region The visible spectrum is the band of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called ''visible light'' (or simply light). The optical spectrum is sometimes considere ...

of the

electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the full range of electromagnetic radiation, organized by frequency or wavelength. The spectrum is divided into separate bands, with different names for the electromagnetic waves within each band. From low to high ...

. It can produce images 1 metre in resolution.

LAPAN-TUBsat Lapan- TUBSat is Indonesia’s first remote sensing satellite, made by the experts from National Institute of Aeronautics and Space ( Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional, Lapan) and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) Germany. The uses of t ...
and
Pehuensat-1 Pehuensat-1 is a satellite built entirely in Argentina with educational objectives. It was launched on January 10, 2007 aboard a rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Satish Dhawan Space Center on the east coast of India. The assembly took ...

is an Argentinian amateur Radio satellite created by students of

Universidad Nacional del Comahue The National University of Comahue (, UNCNavarro, Fernando A. ''. Tremédica, Asociación Internacional de Traductores y Redactores de Medicina y Ciencias Afines/UNCoPortal de Prensa de la Uncoma, Universidad Nacional del Comahue'/Uncoma) is an ...

is an Indonesian micro satellite, weighing 56 Kilograms, orbiting at 630 kilometers above Indonesia. This satellite travels through

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of abo ...

across the archipelago two or three times each day.

Dual Launch Adapter

It's an adapter designed to carry medium class (~1000 kg) payloads in

. It consists of a Carbon Fibre composite, arranged in Honeycomb sandwich shells. With an

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

core. It consists of three structures, DLA-U (upper), DLA-M (middle), and DLA-L (lower). DLA is mounted of the fourth stage of PS4, by bolting the DLA-L with Payload Adapter (PLA). DLA-U carries

, and SRE is connected to PLA via a band clamp separation system. DLA includes cutouts in which electrical connectors, sensors, cooling system of the satellite etc. can be mounted.

Reactions and Honours

Team of ISRO scientists who were part of the mission were awarded the prestigious team achievement award of the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...

. The award was given to them at

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, on September 28.

Chairman Madhavan Nair told the press "We've done it perfectly", after the launch. Dr V Jayaraman, director, earth observation system, said "We believe we can offer our products at one-fifth of the cost of our competitors, The size of the international market (for such images) is about $300 million-$500 million."

Team

The PSLV-C7 team was led by * N Narayana Murthy, Project Director,

* George Koshy, Vehicle Director, PSLV-C7 * Cartosat-2 by M Krishnaswamy, Programme Director, IRS. *

SRE-1 The Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SCRE or more commonly SRE or SRE-1) is an Indian experimental spacecraft which was launched at 03:53 UTC on January 10, 2007, from Sriharikota by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The launch w ...

by A Subramoniam * Ground support team by S K Shivakumar, Director, ISTRAC. * Overall co-ordination by P S Sastry, Director, LVPO at ISRO Headquarters, Bangalore.

References

{{Indian space programme ISRO space launch vehicles