India is the heir apparent. Those who have been studying India’s rise as an economic and military giant will give an approving nod to this notion. To those who remain apprehensive, there is no scarcity of metaphors. Look no further than the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle -C40 which took off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the island of Sriharikota on January 12th 2018, hurtling towards space carrying 31 satellites. The feat becomes more impressive when one realises that this was ISRO’s 100th successful mission. The mission was conducted under the supervision of chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar.
The matter of greater importance and pride is that the PSLV-C40 successfully placed the Cartosat-2 series satellite in a sun synchronous orbit. It is a major development in the field of Cartography as these are earth observation satellite and Cartosat-2F is an advanced version of Indian Remote Sensing Programme. The prior attempt for the same was made about 4 months ago, which failed due to a technical complication in its heat shield.
The prime minister was all praises for this achievement. “My heartiest congratulations to @isro and its scientists on the successful launch of PSLV today. This success in the New Year will bring benefits of the country’s rapid strides in space technology to our citizens, farmers, fishermen, etc.,” Modi tweeted.
Out of the 31 satellites which were launched, 28 belongs to 6 other countries including Finland, Canada, France, Republic of Korea, US and UK. ISRO celebrates its new year with the launch of it’s three satellites – Cartosat, Nanosat and Microsat.
PSLV-C40 lifted off at 9:28AM and the 710kg Cartosat-2 series soared into a cloudy sky along with 30 other spacecrafts. The last stage of this launch mission was finally shut off at 2 hours 21 minutes, thus making the mission the longest ever by Isro.
The road ahead for ISRO seems adventurous with missions like Chandrayan II in sight. At the helm will be K. Sivan who replaced Kumar on Monday as the new Secretary, Department of Space, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Space Commission. He will join the headquarters on January 22nd.