ISRO to launch its heaviest space mission tomorrow

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its thirtieth flight (PSLV-C28), will launch three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), United Kingdom (UK).

These three DMC3 satellites will be launched into a 647 km Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) on 10 July at 9:58 pm, using the high-end version of PSLV (PSLV-XL) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota (SDSC-SHAR), the spaceport of India. Each DMC3 satellites weighs 447 kg. This is ISRO's heaviest space mission so far.

According to ISRO, It is a multi-step launch process and so far the preparations are going on smoothly.

The PSLV-C28, in addition to the three DMC3 satellites, will also carry two auxiliary satellites from UK.

With the overall lift-off mass of the five satellites amounting to about 1440 kg, this mission becomes the heaviest commercial mission ever undertaken by Antrix/ISRO.

The DMC3 constellation, comprises of three advanced mini-satellites DMC3-1, DMC3-2 and DMC3-3, is designed to address the need for simultaneous high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution optical Earth Observation.

Major application areas include:

-surveying the resources on earth and its environment,

-managing urban infrastructure and monitoring of disasters.