Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) Raketa carrier

Main article: Cosmonautics in India

2023: Indian rocket launches 3 satellites into orbit to capture Earth in high resolution

On February 10, 2023, a small SSLV launch vehicle was successfully launched from the site of the Satish Dhavan Space Center of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). She launched three spacecraft into orbit, including a EOS-07 satellite for remote sensing of the Earth.

The SSLV, or Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, rocket was launched from a Raketa on Sriharikota island in the Bay of Bengal in southern Andhra Pradesh. 15.5 minutes after launch, a three-stage carrier with a lifting capacity of 500 kg brought all three satellites to given circular orbits with an altitude of 450 km.

Small Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket

The main payload, a 156 kg EOS-07 vehicle, is an experimental satellite designed to work out new instruments for Earth observation. The onboard equipment includes a millimeter-wave radar for assessing humidity and an instrument for spectral shooting of the planet's surface with high resolution. The active existence of the spacecraft will EOS-07 be at least one year.

Two more satellites launched using the SSLV rocket were named Janus-1 and AzaadiSAT-2. The first of these devices has a mass of about 10.2 kg. It was created by the Indian-American company Antaris as a demonstrator of the platform's capabilities for intelligent satellites. In turn, the AzaadiSAT-2 weighs 8.7 kg. Hundreds of female students from all over India took part in the creation of this apparatus. The satellite has the Cubesat 8U format and contains dozens of different modules for conducting all kinds of research. In particular, the AzaadiSAT-2 will explore the possibilities of LoRa technology, which provides long-distance data transfer with low power consumption. In addition, AzaadiSAT-2 will serve as a platform for assessing radiation levels in space and performing other experiments.^[1]

2022: India loses satellites launched into orbit

During the first launch of the Indian Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) on August 6, 2022, it was not possible to reach orbit due to a malfunction in the rocket's launch stage.

The three-stage rocket, designed to deliver up to 500 kg of payload to 500 km of low-earth orbit, was launched at 11:48 am on August 6, 2022 from launch pad No. 1 of the Satish Dhavan Space Center. Aboard the rocket were a 135 kg EOS-02 Earth sensing satellite created by the Indian space agency ISRO and an 8 kg AzaadiSAT cubsat assembled by Indian students.

Live footage showed the 34-metre-high rocket, which shows India's national flag, soaring into the sky. Solid fuel, hydroxylterminated polybutadiene, was used as fuel for the rocket's three lower stages, and engines on hydrazine and mixed nitrogen oxides were used for the latter stage, called Velocity Trimming Module (VTM), to accurately remove the payload.

The development of events broadcast on the screen showed that the start of the rocket flight took place without complications. The first stage separated approximately two minutes after the start, as planned, and after 3.5 minutes the second stage separated. The third stage separated 10.7 minutes after the start. Judging by the latest screen data, the actuation of the injection module began 10.8 minutes after takeoff, but was interrupted only one tenth of a second later. At one point, the personnel showed the satellite EOS-02 being ejected from the module.

ISRO chairman Sridhar Somanath said some time later that the first three stages had worked as expected, but there was "some data loss" in the final phase of the flight. ISRO later announced that there was a glitch in the VTM system, which put the satellites into an elliptical orbit 76 356 kilometers in diameter instead of the planned 356-kilometer circular orbit. "The satellites are no longer usable," ISRO said. The satellites likely entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.^[2]

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