Sriharikota (AP), Feb 25 (PTI): Indo-French oceanographic
study satellite 'SARAL' and six foreign mini and micro
spacecrafts were succesfully launched today by ISRO's PSLV-C20
rocket from this spaceport. Indian Space Research Organisation's(ISRO) workhorse
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) lifted off from the first
launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at around 6 pm at the
end of the 59-hour countdown and placed in the orbit the
satellites about 22 minutes later. President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch from the mission control centre here, about 110 km from Chennai. The lift-off was rescheduled to 6.01 pm, a five-minute delay, to avoid probability of collision with space debris, a
normal precautionary step in a launch mission, ISRO sources
said. The 410-kg SARAL with payloads -- Argos and Altika --
from French space agency CNES is meant for study of ocean
parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean
state conditions. Besides SARAL, two micro-satellites UniBRITE and BRITE
from Austria, AAUSAT3 from Denmark and STRaND from United
Kingdom as also one micro-satellite (NEOSSat) and one
mini-satellite (SAPPHIRE) from Canada were launched by PSLV,
which yet again proved its versatality recording its 22nd
succesful flight in a row in its 23 missions of which the
first one had failed. SARAL was injected first into the space about 18 minutes
after the lift-off followed by other satellites in the space
of about four minutes.
