ISRO will launch 31 satellites on January 10

India will launch 31 satellites, including the earth observation spacecraft Cartosat on January 10, from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, an official said on Saturday. "We have tentatively scheduled the rocket launch at 9.30 a.m. to carry Cartosat and other satellites, including 28 from the US and five other countries in a single mission," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Director Devi Prasad Karnik told IANS here. The first space mission in 2018 onboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) comes four months after a similar rocket failed to deliver the country's eighth navigation satellite in the earth's lower orbit on August 31. "The sixth Cartosat in the second series and other satellites are integrated with the rocket at the spaceport. The mission launch board will decide the rocket's lift-off time for the reverse countdown two days ahead," said Karnik. The mission's payload will also include one each nano and micro satellite from India, besides Cartosat-2.

As an observational satellite, Cartosat will beam high-quality images for cartographic, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation and utility management like road network monitoring.

The previous two satellites in the Cartosat-2 series were launched on June 23 and February 15, from the spaceport on the east coast, about 90km up Chennai.

As a follow-on mission, Cartosat will also relay high resolution scene specific spot imageries with data from its panchromatic and multi-spectral cameras operating in time delay integration mode.

The space scientists are taking special measures to ensure the 44.4 metre rocket will sling the 720kg Cartosat and other satellites one-after-one into their intended orbits.

"The August 31 mission suffered a setback when the 320-tonne workhorse launcher (PSLV-C39) did not separate the heat shield to deliver the spare satellite in the Indian Remote Navigation Satellite Series (IRNSS-H) from its cone-shaped top-end," recalled another official.

To make up for the lost time when launches were held up for four months pending inquiry into the August 31 mission failure, the space agency plans to have at least one launch a month in 2018.

"We have lined up five-six launches in the first half of next year, including two for deploying GSAT-6A and GSAT-29 advanced communication satellites in the geo-synchronous orbit (36,000km above earth)," asserted the official.

The space agency will also launch its second lunar mission (Chandrayaan-2) to the moon, with an orbiter, lander and rover for the first time.

The 3,290 kg Chandrayaan-2 will orbit around the moon and study its lunar conditions to collect data on its topography, mineralogy, exosphere and the "presence" of water ice and hydroxyl. On reaching the 100 km lunar orbit, the lander with the six-wheeled rover will separate from the spacecraft and descend slowly to soft land on the lunar surface at a designated spot.

"The rover will move around the landing site in semi-autonomous mode as per the ground commands while its instruments will observe the lunar surface and transmit the data for analysis of its soil," added the official.

Spaceflight Prepares to Launch Eleven Spacecraft on India's PSLV-C40

Spaceflight, a satellite rideshare and mission management provider, has announced it will be launching 11 spacecraft in early January from India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Spacecraft include Finland's ICEYE-X1 SAR microsatellite, Planetary Resources' Arkyd-6 6U asteroid prospecting demonstration cubesat, four Spire Global Lemur-2 cubesats, Astro Digital's Landmapper-BC3, AMSAT's Fox-1D cubesat, and others. Spaceflight performed the cubesat integration at its Seattle Integration Facility and is in the process of shipping the spacecraft to India for the PSLV-C40 mission. The PSLV rocket is scheduled to lift off from India's Satish Dhawan Space Center in early January 2018 with the Cartosat-2ER navigation satellite, in addition to Spaceflight's rideshare customers. "PSLV-C40 is a perfect example of how our flexible, full-service rideshare model is enabling new commercial space businesses to exist while expanding into new markets," said Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight. "This mission brings new customers from outside the industry into space while continuing partnerships with existing customers for their ongoing satellite constellations." One first-time customer on the mission is Finland's ICEYE with the country's first commercial satellite, ICEYE-X1. ICEYE developed its own synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) sensor technologies suitable for satellites under 100kg in weight, making it one of the bigger payloads on the PSLV-C40 mission.

This is ICEYE's first proof-of-concept microsatellite mission with a SAR sensor as its payload and also the world's first SAR satellite in this size, enabling radar imaging of the Earth through clouds and even in total darkness. Potential use-cases for the data are monitoring sea ice movements or marine oil spills, and prevention of illegal fishing.

"Working together with Spaceflight to schedule and make this launch a reality has been an outstanding experience for ICEYE, and it has given us the necessary opportunities for scaling up operations for our constellation of micro-SAR satellites as planned," said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and co-founder at ICEYE.

Spaceflight offers customers the most options for getting to space, working with nearly every global launch vehicle provider, including the Falcon 9, PSLV, Antares, Cygnus, Electron, Soyuz and others.

Much like buying an airline ticket that is valid on multiple airlines, Spaceflight can ensure organizations have flexibility to move vehicles if changes or delays occur. Additionally, the smallsat rideshare service model helps organizations reach a desired orbit at a much lower cost than buying their own launch vehicle.

Spaceflight has negotiated the launch of more than 120 satellites on behalf of its customers and has contracts to deploy nearly 200 more through 2018. The company plans to coordinate and deploy its largest launch to date in 2018 with its first dedicated rideshare mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.