Another Eye In The Sky! Countdown Begins For First Mission Of This Year, PSLV C49 To Launch Amid Pandemic

The 26-hour countdown for the Saturday rocket launch from the first launch pad has begun on Friday afternoon at 1302 hrs IST.

(Image: PTI)

New Delhi: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch the first satellite of this year amidst the pandemic, from Satish Dhawan Space centre in Sriharikota. On November 7, PSLV C49 rocket will carry EOS01 as primary satellite along with 9 other commercial satellites. Based on the weather conditions ISRO has also kept a backup date. However for now, it is official that ISRO will launch its first mission PSLVC49 at 1502 Hrs IST on November 7. The 26-hour countdown for the Saturday rocket launch from the first launch pad has begun on Friday afternoon at 1302 hrs IST. If all goes well with the Saturday evening rocketing of the PSLV- C49 then the Indian space agency would have slung a total of 328 foreign satellites. The rocket's primary payload is India's radar imaging satellite EOS-01, formerly RISAT-2BR2.EOS-01 is an advanced series of earth observation Risat satellite whose synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can also see through clouds regardless of any weather day and night. Such is an observation capability of formerly known RISAT 2BR2, Now EOS-01. India's new ‘eye in the sky’ will boost the military’s surveillance capability from space and help the security forces keep a hawk eye on the borders amid the LAC stand-off with China. Besides its surveillance role, EOS-01 will also be used for civil applications like in agriculture, forestry, soil moisture, geology, coastal monitoring and flood monitoring. Whereas the customer satellites are being launched under commercial agreement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), Department of Space. ISRO has also said that the gathering of media personnel is not planned this time in view of the strict COVID-19 pandemic norms in place at SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. Also the launch viewing gallery will be closed during this launch. However the live telecast of the launch will be available on ISRO website, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter channels. This will be ISRO's first satellite launch amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has slowed down all space activities since March. The agency is also gearing up for the much-awaited first demonstration test of its new rocket Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) or mini-PSLV by December. The last mission launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in India was the RISAT-2BR1 onboard the PSLV C48. After that, in January 2020, the GSAT-30 communication satellite was launched onboard Ariane-5 VA-251. The organisation was also supposed to launch GISAT-1 onboard GSLV-F10 on 5 March 2020, which was postponed due to technical issues. Immediately after PSLV C49 launch ISRO will launch its much awaited GSAT-12R satellite through PSLV C50 and then a GSLV rocket carrying GISAT-1 Satellite.