India’s first indigenous all-weather Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) was injected into orbit with textbook precision in yet another successful launch by the country’s reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C19, a few minutes before dawn, at 5.47 am, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Shar in Sriharikota located in SPSR Nellore district of AP on Thursday.
The new state-of-the-art Mission Control Centre was used for the first time to launch the 1,858-kg microwave sensing satellite, Risat-1. The first microwave sensing satellite developed in the country, it puts an end to India’s dependence on a Canadian satellite for pictures of earth during cloudy conditions. The satellite carries a C-band (5.35 GHz) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload that enables applications in agriculture, particularly paddy monitoring in the kharif season and management of natural disasters like floods and cyclone.
The data sent by Risat-1 will be useful to estimate agriculture production and forecast. A beaming Dr K. Radhakrishnan, Isro chairman, announced that the PSLV C-19 mission has been a grand success and the satellite was placed in the desired orbit. Speaking to media persons, he said that the mission cost was Rs 488 crore with Rs 378 crore spent for Risat-1 and Rs 110 crore for PSLV-C19.
He said that the solar panel of the satellite and the antenna of the Synthetic Aperture Radar were successfully deployed. The satellite will be placed in an initial orbit of 480 km, and will be pushed to its final orbit of 536 km in the next three days. It will orbit around the earth 14 times a day during its mission life of five years. Imaging operations will begin from May 1, he added. Reacting to a question about funds allotted under the 12th Five Year Plan being under-utilised, Dr Radhakrishnan said that was because Isro had sought a high allocation of funds to obtain the Russian cryogenic engines and remote sensing satellites but that amount was not spent.
He said that Isro is planning to launch a communication satellite, Gsat-10, from French Guyana using the Ariane-5 launcher in August this year.