The home‐grown PSLV rocket has nosed its way a wee bit more in the global market: it will launch France’s 712 ‐kg SPOT‐7 earth observation satellite and separately, at least half‐a‐dozen small foreign spacecraft for a fee this year and the next. They are still mini nibbles at the multi‐billion dollar space transportation pie but the country’s workhorse launcher seems to be increasingly catching satellite makers’ eye for its dependable and Precise placing of spacecraft in their slots. Going by the mass of the client satellites, its cache is getting bigger than before. In the upcoming crop of contracts, SPOT‐7 and the 950 kg EnMAP are primary satellites, which means the PSLV is graduating from tucking small commercial “piggybacks” in spare nooks left over by a main Indian passenger spacecraft.
Source: Hindu
Leave Your Comment