India’s PSLV-C35 to launch SCATSAT-1, 7 other satellites on September 26

Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday said it would launch SCATSAT-1 for ocean and weather related studies along with seven co-passenger satellites into polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) on September 26.

ISRO said the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 37th flight, (PSLV-C35) will launch the SCATSAT-1 and co-passenger satellites at 9:12 hours (IST) on Monday September 26, 2016 from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

Co-passenger satellites are from Algeria, Canada and USA as well as two satellites from Indian universities.

The 377 kg SCATSAT-1 satellite would be placed into a 720 km Polar SSO, whereas the two Universities satellites and the five foreign satellites will be placed into a 670 km polar orbit.

According to ISRO, SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for Oceansat-2 Scatterometer to provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users. The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer similar to the one flown onboard Oceansat-2

This will be the first mission of PSLV in which it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits.

Earlier this month on 8th September, the Indian space agency successfully launched the INSAT-3DR - an advanced weather satellite - equipped with modern instruments to study weather patterns and to help in the surface-level search and rescue operations.

On 15th September, ISRO released the first images of the Earth captured by the INSAT-3DR satellite, which went viral on Twitter.

ISRO said this will be the fifteenth flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration (with the use of solid strap-on motors).