ISRO Launches 36 Broadband Satellites on India’s Heaviest Rocket, GSLV Mark-3 Successfully
Media Credit - ISRO
ISRO created history on Sunday by launching 36 broadband satellites for a commercially paying customer, OneWeb, onboard GSLV Mark -3, the heaviest lift rocket in ISRO’s arsenal.
The satellites were launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LMV-3), a renamed version of the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mk-III) at 12.07 am on Sunday, October 23. The launch went through exactly as planned. Although GSLV LVM 3 has a 10-ton payload capacity, the rocket launched only with 6 tons of payload.
Watch the detailed video of the entire journey of this launch by ISRO here:
The rocket will not launch satellites into geosynchronous orbit, which is why, the name of the vehicle was changed from GSLV to LVM. The OneWeb satellites will be placed in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is 1,200 kilometres above the Earth. On the other hand, the geosynchronous orbit is situated 35,786 kilometres above the equator of the planet.
All the 36 satellites were placed in their respective low earth orbits (LEO) 75 minutes after the rocket carrying them blasted off spectacularly from the Sriharikota spaceport.
These satellites are a component of the OneWeb constellation, which will finally have 648 satellites. These satellites are expected to bring internet connectivity to the remotest corners of the world. For the launch, OneWeb signed a contract worth more than Rs 1000 crore, and a subsequent GSLV launch with a OneWeb payload is scheduled for January 2023.
Two solid strap-on boosters and a liquid core stage propelled the rocket to its desired altitude and trajectory to deploy the satellites in LEO.
