Remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2A launched

Remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2A was launched from Sriharikota at 10:24 a.m. on Wednesday.

The spacecraft was flown aboard a PSLV-C36 rocket.

“It was a perfect launch,” A.S. Kiran Kumar, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said.

“We have put one more operational satellite in orbit,” he said in an address from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in coastal Andhra Pradesh.

It was the 37th consecutive successful flight of the indigenous light-lifting rocket.

The 1,235-kg spacecraft has started orbiting pole-to-pole at 824 km from Earth.
The three cameras of different resolution on the spacecraft will give regular micro and macro information on land and water bodies below, farm lands and crop extent, forests, mineral deposits, coastal information, rural and urban spreads besides helping in disaster management.

The ISRO put a few specialties into what is otherwise a routine follow-on mission.

“The new on-board cameras put for the first time on the launcher showed us the separation of the stages during the flight and the deployment of the solar panels of the satellite,” Mr. Kiran Kumar said.

SDSC Director P.Kunhikrishnan said this was ISRO’s  ninth launch in 2016, including the more powerful and operational GSLV. A new avionics and flight navigation system was tested.