Operator ISRO Mission duration 1117.5 seconds | Website ISRO website | |
Mission type Deployment of three satellites. Apogee 735.1 kilometres (457 mi) Spacecraft | ||
PSLV-C2 was the second operational launch and overall fifth mission of the PSLV program. This launch was also the forty-third launch by Indian Space Research Organisation since its first mission on 1 January 1962. The vehicle carried three satellites which were deployed in the Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit. The vehicle carried India's first remote sensing satellite Oceansat-1 (IRS-P4) as the main payload. It also carried South Korean satellite Kitsat-3 and German satellite DLR-Tubsat as auxiliary payloads. PSLV-C2 was the first Indian Expendable launch vehicle to carry and deploy more than one satellite in a mission. This was also India's and ISRO's first commercial spaceflight where South Korea and Germany each paid $1.0 million (equivalent to $1.44 million in 2016) to ISRO for launching their satellites.
Contents
Mission parameters
Payload
PSLV-C2 carried and deployed total three satellites. Oceansat-1 (IRS-P4) was the main payload and Kitsat-3 and DLR-Tubsat were two auxiliary payloads that were mounted on PSLV-C2 equipment bay diametrically opposite to each other. Oceansat-1, was mounted on top of the equipment bay. In the flight sequence, IRS-P4 was injected first, followed by Kitsat-3 and then DLR-Tubsat.
Launch & planned flight profile
PSLV-C2 was launched at 11:52 a.m. IST on 26 May 1999 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (then called "Sriharikota Launching Range"). The mission was planned with pre-flight prediction of perigee and apogee of 727 km (±35 km). The actual perigee was 723.1 km, apogee was 735.1 km. Following was the planned flight profile.
The launch was witnessed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (then Prime Minister of India), Murli Manohar Joshi, Vasundhara Raje and N. Chandrababu Naidu.