ISRO to Launch Oceansat-3 and 8 Nano-Satellites from Sriharikota on Nov 26

Nov 22, 2022, 18:57 IST

Tirupati: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to launch OceanSat-3 and eight nano-satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on November 26.

According to ISRO, the lift off from the Sriharikota spaceport is scheduled at 11.46 am on Saturday. These satellites are being launched as part of the PSLV C-54 or EOS-06 mission.

After sending Oceansat-2, Earth-observation satellite (EOS), into space in 2009, the national space agency will now launch a third Oceansat-3 EOS to monitor and record ocean observations. The satellite has a mass of 960 kilograms, and will operate at 1,360 Watts. OceanSat-3 will be placed into a sun-synchronous orbit. It is equipped with an ocean colour monitor, scatterometer, and sea surface temperature monitor. It is estimated to have a mission life of five years.

In addition to Oceansat-3, BhutanSat, a Bhutanese satellite, a nano-satellite called Anand, developed by Pixxel India, and other nano-satellites developed by Dhruva Space, Astrocast and Spaceflight USA, a Seattle-based aerospace company will be launched on Saturday.

Pixxel, a spacetech startup is set to launch its third hyperspectral satellite Anand onboard PSLV. Anand is a hyperspectral microsatellite weighing less than 15 kg but having more than 150 wavelengths that will enable it to capture images of the earth in greater detail than today's non-hyperspectral satellites that have not more than 10 wavelengths.

Pixxel and Dhruva Space are space technology companies based in Bengaluru (plus California, the United States) and Hyderabad (plus Graz, Austria) respectively.

“After more than 18 months of delay, many many retests, and more than two years of sweat and hard work by the team, we are finally launching this week,” Awais Ahmed, Founder and CEO of Pixxel wrote in his tweet.

After more than 18 months of delay, many many retests, and more than 2 years of sweat and hard work by the team, we are finally launching this week! Look forward to having our third satellite (but the first one we ever built) in space very soon! pic.twitter.com/vrf6ULVB69

— Awais Ahmed (@awaisahmedna) November 21, 2022