Isro launches 100th satellite and successfully places Cartosat-2 into the orbit

Bouncing back strongly from its recent failure, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday successfully launched the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota.

The PSLV -C40 successfully placed Cartosat-2 series satellite into sun synchronous orbit, Isro said.

The success of Friday’s launch comes about four months after Isro’s PSLV-C39 failed following a technical snag involving the heat shield.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed ISRO scientists for the successful PSLV C-40 mission, saying the moment signifies the agency's achievements as well the country's 'bright future' in space programme.

"My heartiest congratulations to @isro and its scientists on the successful launch of PSLV today. This success in the New Year will bring benefits of the country's rapid strides in space technology to our citizens, farmers, fishermen etc."

"The launch of the 100th satellite by @isro signifies both its glorious achievements, and also the bright future of India's space programme."

"Benefits of India's success are available to our partners! Out of the 31 Satellites, 28 belonging to 6 other countries are carried by today's launch."

“ISRO is starting 2018 with the successful launch of our Cartosat small satellite, nanosat and microsat and 28 customer satellites,” A.S.Kiran Kumar, Isro’s chairman said to loud applause within the command centre.

“The last launch on the PSLV, whatever heat shield problems we had faced, the committees went through rigorously and then found corrective measures that were required to make the system more robust and today what has happened vindicates that the problem is properly understood and rectified and we are extremely happy to provide a new year gift to the country with Cartosat series,” Kumar said.

The 710 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation and 30 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 613 kg at lift-off.

The co-passenger satellites comprise one Microsatellite and one Nanosatellite from India as well as 3 Microsatellites and 25 Nanosatellites from six countries, namely, Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, UK and USA. The total weight of all the 31 satellites carried onboard PSLV-C40 is about 1323 kg, according to information provided by Isro.