ISRO to launch earth observation satellite tomorrow for agriculture, forestry, disaster management support

Bengaluru: Indian Space Research Organisation will launch an earth observation satellite for both civilian and strategic purposes on Saturday, the first since the Pandemic halted operations in March.

The polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) rocket will carry E0S01 and nine international customer satellites – four owned by the US, four owned by Luxembourg and one satellite owned by Lithuania.

It would be the 51st mission of PSLV and the launch is tentatively scheduled at 3.02 pm on November 07, Saturday, subject to weather conditions, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

The customer satellites are being launched under a commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Ltd, the commercial arm of ISRO.

According to the agency, E0S01 is intended for applications in agriculture, forestry and disaster management support.

While the mission objective of the satellite from Lithuania is technology demonstration; the other four satellites from Luxembourg will have maritime applications. The four satellites from the US will work on multi-mission remote sensing.

The space agency has lined up a few launches in November and December including the first demonstration test of its new rocket small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV).

ISRO is also working on high throughput satellites with up to 300 bpps in the communication space. K Sivan, chairman, ISRO, told ET in an interview early this year that the agency is working with 18 crops and we will increase it to 25 crops in earth observation.