ISRO’s SSLV-D2 launch
- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently launched the second development flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).
- The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV-D2) was launched successfully from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
- It was ISRO’s first launch of 2023.
- It will place the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) earth observation satellite EOS-07 and two co-passenger satellites Janus-1 and AzaadiSat2 in a 450-km circular orbit around the Earth.
- Janus-1 and AzaadiSat2 are developed by start-ups.
- G20 logo:
- The satellite will also carry the G20 logo to space and the NCC song to celebrate 75 years of the organisation.
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Janus-1
- Janus-1 is a technology demonstrator satellite built by United States-based Antaris and its Indian partners XDLinks and Ananth Technologies.
- It weighs only 10.2 kg, is a six-unit cube satellite with five payloads on board — two from Singapore, and one each from Kenya, Australia, and Indonesia.
- The entire satellite was built in 10 months, less than half the time it usually takes to manufacture satellites of this size.
AzaadiSat2
- The payloads have been built by 750 girl students from across India.
- The payloads contain:
- LoRa amateur radio, a sensor to measure radiation levels in space, and sensors to measure the health of the satellite such as temperature, reset count, and inertial data
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Significance of SSLV
- Multiple satellites & multiple drop-offs:
- SSLV is perfectly suited for launching multiple microsatellites at a time and supports multiple orbital drop-offs.
- SSLV is capable of launching Mini, Micro, or Nanosatellites (10 to 500 kg mass) to a 500 km planar orbit.
- Development of commercial Market:
- The new vehicle was developed to capture the emerging small and micro satellite commercial market, with launches offered on demand.
- The launch of small satellites has until now been dependent on ‘piggy-back’ rides with big satellite launches on ISRO’s work-horse
- Less time, manpower & cost-effective:
- It will take only 72 hours to integrate, unlike the 70 days taken now for a launch vehicle.
- Only six people will be required to do the job, instead of 60 people.
- So, the entire job will be done in a very short time and the cost will be only around Rs 30 crore.
- It will be an on-demand vehicle.
Previous development flight:
- Failure:
- The vehicle’s first development flight that took place last August after repeated delays due to the pandemic, failed to place the satellites in precise orbit.
- Analysis:
- A failure analysis report on why satellites were not injected in desired orbits during the August launch suggests that it was because of vibrations picked up by the accelerometers on-board, which led to the systems thinking that they were faulty.
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Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
- It is the third generation launch vehicle of India.
- It is the first Indian launch vehicle to be equipped with liquid stages.
- After its first successful launch in October 1994, PSLV emerged as the reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle of India with 39 consecutively successful missions by June 2017.
- The vehicle successfully launched two spacecraft – Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 – that later travelled to Moon and Mars respectively.
- Difference: PSLV was developed to launch low-Earth Orbit satellites into polar and sun synchronous orbits whereas GSLV was developed to launch the heavier INSAT class of geosynchronous satellites into orbit.
Difference between circular and elliptical orbits
- Mostly objects such as satellites and spacecrafts are put in elliptical orbits only temporarily.
- They are then either pushed up to circular orbits at a greater height or the acceleration is increased until the trajectory changes from an ellipse to a hyperbola and the spacecraft escapes the gravity of the Earth in order to move further into space.
- Satellites that orbit the Earth are mostly placed in circular orbits.
- One reason is that if the satellite is used for imaging the Earth, it is easier if it has a fixed distance from the Earth.
- If the distance keeps changing as in an elliptical orbit, keeping the cameras focussed can become complicated.
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