INDIA TO LAUNCH SINGAPORE SATELLITE
The Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) is to launch a satellite of Singapore.
This will be the 5th foreign satellite to be launched
by ISRO. The Antrix Corporation of the Department of Space and
the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore have signed
an agreement in this regard.
The satellite, a
remote sensing 100 kg class micro X-SAT being developed by the
Nanyang Technological University is for earth observation and
imaging in visible spectral bands. The satellite will be used
for land and coastal observations employing multi-spectral imaging.
The three-axes stabilised spacecraft will have deployable solar
panels. It will be launched by ISRO’s time-tested polar satellite
launch vehicle PSLV during one of its forthcoming missions. The
Antrix Corporation will also provide the Singapore University
with the necessary support for testing the satellite.
The Corporation provides
launching services for foreign satellites using ISRO’s PSLV. The
other foreign satellites launched by ISRO earlier were PROBA of
Belgium, BIRD and DLR-TUBSAT of Germany and KITSAT-3 of Korea.
PSLV has been launching
mainly Indian remote sensing satellites weighing upto 900 kg in
polar orbit. Its modified version i.e. the PSLV C-4 for the first
time put into orbit the METSAT an exclusive meteorological satellite
weighing upto 1200 kg in September last. It was also the first
time that the PSLV was used successfully for launching a satellite
into the Geostationary transfer orbit.
