In its thirty eighth
flight (PSLV-C36), ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched
the 1235 kg RESOURCESAT-2A Satellite
today morning (December 07, 2016) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre
SHAR, Sriharikota. This is the thirty seventh consecutively
successful mission of PSLV.
After PSLV-C36 lift-off
at 10:25 am IST from the First Launch Pad with the ignition of the first stage,
the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and
separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, payload fairing
separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation,
fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned. After a flight of 17
minutes 05 seconds, the vehicle achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 824
km height inclined at an angle of 98.725 degree to the equator (very close to
the intended orbit) and 47 seconds later, RESOURCESAT-2A was separated from the
PSLV fourth stage.
After separation, the
two solar arrays of RESOURCESAT-2A deployed automatically and ISRO's Telemetry,
Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the 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 imagery from
its three cameras. The data sent by RESOURCESAT-2A will be
useful for agricultural applications like crop area and crop production
estimation, drought monitoring, soil mapping, cropping system analysis and farm
advisories generation.
Like its predecessors
RESOURCESAT-1 and 2, RESOURCESAT-2A has a unique 3-Tier imaging system with
Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), Linear Imaging Self Scanner-3 (LISS-3) and
Linear Imaging Self Scanner-4 (LISS-4) cameras. The AWiFS provides images with
a sampling of 56 metres, a swath of 740 km and a revisit of 5 days whereas the
LISS-3 provides 23.5 metre sampled images with 141 km swath and a
repitivity of 24 days. LISS-4 provides 5.8 metre sampled images with 70 km
swath and a revisit of 5 days.
With today’s launch,
the PSLV has yet again demonstrated its reliability. The total number of
satellites launched by India’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV including today’s
RESOURCESAT-2A has now reached 122, of which 43 are Indian and the remaining 79
are from abroad.
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