India launches PSLV-C45, with spysat and 28 microsats onboard

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has successfully launched EMISAT and 28 international customer satellites into their designated orbits. The PSLV-C45 mission lifted off at 09:27 Hrs (IST) on April 01, 2019 from the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota in its 47th flight. This flight marked the first mission of PSLV-QL, a new variant of PSLV with four strap-on motors. About 17 minutes and 12 seconds after lift-off, EMISAT was successfully injected into intended sun-synchronous polar orbit of 748 km height. After the separation of EMISAT, the vehicle's fourth stage engines were restarted twice to place the 28 international customer satellites precisely into a sun-synchronous orbit of 504 km height. The last customer satellite was placed in its designated orbit 1 hour and 55 minutes after lift-off. About 3 hours after lift-off, the fourth stage (PS4) of the vehicle was moved to a lower circular orbit of 485 km after two restarts to establish it as an orbital platform for carrying out experiments with its three payloads. The PS4 payloads are Automatic Identification System from ISRO, Automatic Packet Repeating System from AMSAT, India and Advanced Retarding Potential Analyzer for ionospheric studies from Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.

Spaceflight Prepares to Send 21 Rideshare Satellites Aboard PSLV C45

Seattle WA (SPX) Mar 26 - Spaceflight, the leading satellite rideshare and mission management provider, reports it will launch 21 spacecraft on a rideshare mission from India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) at India's Satish Dhawan Space Center.

The launch is scheduled for Mon., April 1, 2019 Indian Standard Time (Sun., March 31 PDT). Payloads aboard the mission include the Astrocast-02 3U cubesat from Switzerland-based Astrocast and Flock 4a, 20 next-generation Dove satellites from Planet.

This launch represents Spaceflight's eighth launch on a PSLV and with the completion of this mission, the company will have sent 95 spacecraft to orbit aboard PSLVs.

"PSLV missions continue to offer a reliable and proven launch option for our customers," said Curt Blake, CEO of Spaceflight.

"By working with Antrix/ISRO and a wide range of vehicle providers, we are uniquely positioned to offer the greatest number of launch options to our customers. Having greater flexibility in launches can minimize the negative impacts of delays which is especially valuable for organizations launching multiple spacecraft."

Spaceflight successfully launched the first test satellite of Astrocast's IoT Nanosatellite Network on its historic SSO-A dedicated rideshare mission in December 2018.

Astrocast's network of 64 cubesats will securely extend the reach of two-way communications to the 90 percent of the globe currently not covered by cellular networks. Using L-Band frequencies, Astrocast's small form factor modules, miniaturized antennas, and optimized data protocol make it the most advanced nanosatellite on the market today.

"Reliable access to space is critical to Astrocast's mission," said Fabien Jordan, CEO of Astrocast. "With Spaceflight, we were able to successfully deploy our first satellite and are looking forward to the PSLV launch as well as other missions in the near future."

In what is Planet's first launch of 2019, Flock 4a will join its current constellation of more than 100 Doves, replenishing the on-orbit fleet and providing upgrades to its imaging chain to improve image sharpness, radiometric consistency and spectral precision.

This mission marks Spaceflight's second launch of 2019 and its first PSLV mission of the year following the successful launches of GTO-1, which deployed the first commercial lunar lander in February aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, and SSO-A, the company's historic dedicated rideshare mission, which launched 64 unique smallsats in December 2018.

To date, the company has negotiated the launch of 224 satellites and has plans for approximately 10 missions in 2019 launching nearly 100 payloads across a wide variety of launch vehicles, include the Falcon 9, Antares, Electron, Vega, Soyuz, and LauncherOne.

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.