ISRO to launch foreign satellite

Marking India’s entry into the global commercial satellite launch market, ISRO will be launching a foreign satellite – an Italian one - as a primary payload on its home-grown rocket the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

For the first time, the indigenously developed PSLV will launch a foreign satellite as a primary payload. Though ISRO had launched foreign satellites as piggy-backs in the past, the 360-kg Italian spacecraft – Agile – will be the first primary payload on an Indian rocket launcher. India’s Advanced Avionics Module will be the secondary payload.

According to ISRO officials, PSLV will be tried out in a new configuration to demonstrate the country’s cost-effective launch services capability. The launch is scheduled to take place at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Srikarikota during the April. Hitherto PSLV, as the name indicates used to place satellites in the polar orbit. “That is satellites would revolve around the earth in a polar orbit (north pole to south pole). However, this April, PSLV will be used to place the Agile spacecraft in an equatorial orbit. The satellite will revolve around the earth in the equatorial plane”, said an ISRO scientist.

Agile is a space scientific mission devoted to gamma-ray astrophysics supported by the Italian Space Agency with scientific and programmatic co-participation of the Italian Institute of Astrophysics and the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics.