Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Hon’ble Minister Science & Technology and Earth Sciences has congratulated the ISRO team for PSLV-C-15’s successful launch of CARTOSAT – 2B Satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota this morning.

The launch of PSLV-C15 was the sixteenth consecutive successful flight of PSLV. Carto-2B has reached the desired orbit and has been stabilized in 3-axis. Solar panels have been deployed. X-band communication has been switched on to check RF link. It is planned to switch on the payload tomorrow i.e. on 13.07.2010. ALSAT-2A has also reached the desired orbit and signal has been received by the ground station in Algeria. STUDSAT too has reached the desired orbit. Signal has been received at the ground station designed by the students of engineering colleges.

After a smooth countdown of 51 hrs the vehicle lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at the opening of the launch window at 09.22 hrs (IST). After about 20 minutes of flight time, India’s advanced remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2B along with four auxiliary satellites was successfully injected into its circular orbit of 637 km with an orbital inclination of 98.10. The preliminary flight data indicates that all major flight events involving stage ignition and burnouts, performance of solid and liquid stages, indigenously developed advanced mission computers and telemetry systems were exactly as predicted.

PSLV-C15 in its flight, in addition to CARTOSAT-2B, carried four auxiliary satellites namely STUDSAT a pico-satellite weighing less than 1 kg, built jointly by students from a consortium of seven engineering colleges from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, two nano satellites NLS 6.1 and NLS 6.2 from University of Toronto, Canada and ALSAT-2A, a micro-satellite from Algerian Space Agency.

Source : Press Information Bureau
Date : July 12, 2010