 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
| Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle |
| The Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) built its Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV) in the early 90s. The 45 m tall PSLV
with a lift-off mass of 295 tonne, had its maiden
success on October 15, 1994 when it launched India's
IRS-P2 remote sensing satellite into a Polar Sun
Synchronous Orbit (SSO) of 820 km. Between 1996
and 2005, it has launched six more Indian Remote
Sensing satellites as well as HAMSAT, a micro satellite
built by ISRO for amateur radio communications into
polar SSOs, one Indian meteorological satellite
into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). During
this period, PSLV has also launched four satellites
from abroad (TUBSAT and DLR-Bird from Germany, Proba
from Belgium and KITSAT from Republic of Korea)
as piggyback payloads into polar SSOs. Thus, PSLV
has emerged as ISRO's workhorse launch vehicle and
proved its reliability and versatility by scoring
eight consecutive successes between 1994-2005 periods
in launching multiple payloads to both SSO as well
as GTO. |
|
 |
|
|
| The first Indian moon mission is proposed to be
a lunar polar orbiter at an altitude of about 100
km from the lunar surface. |
|
| Considering the maturity of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
(PSLV) demonstrated through PSLV-C4/KALPANA-1 mission,
PSLV is chosen for the first lunar mission. The upgraded
version of PSLV viz., PSLV-C11 which has a liftoff weight
of 316 tonnes, will be used to inject 1304 kg mass spacecraft
at 240 x 24,000 km orbit and the corresponding spacecraft
mass is 590kg when the target lunar orbit of 100 km is
achieved. |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
