ISRO’s commercial arm NSIL to launch PSLV-C53 mission on June 30

Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) commercial arm New Space India Limited (NSIL) will launch the PSLV-C53 mission carrying three satellites from Singapore on June 30.

This is the second commercial space mission undertaken by the newly formed public sector undertaking NSIL. The new entity has been formed to bring commercial contracts for ISRO in the future. NSIL launched the PSLV-C52 mission in February this year.

ISRO said that the launch vehicle will carry a DS-EO satellite and two other co-passenger satellites. This will be PSLV’s 55th mission.

PSLV-C53 is scheduled to take off at 6 pm (IST) on June 30 from the Second Launch Pad at Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The countdown of 25 hours prior to the launch will start at 5 pm a day earlier.

ISRO will not only send off three commercial foreign satellites with PSLV-C53, but the fourth and final stage will act as an orbital platform in space for six payloads, including two from Indian space startups Digantara and Dhruva Space.

The three satellites include a 365 kg DS-EO and 155 kg NeuSAR. Both these satellites belong to Singapore and have been built by Starec Initiative in the Republic of Korea.

The third satellite, also from Singapore, is a 2.8 kg SCOOB-1 of Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

The DS-EO will have an Electro-Optic, multi-spectral payload, which has 0.5 m resolution imaging capability.

The NeuSAR will carry a SAR payload, which can provide images at day and night and under all weather conditions.

SCOOB-I satellite is the first satellite under the student training program -- Student Satellite Series (S3-I) – offered by the Satellite Research Centre (SaRC) at NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Singapore.

According to ISRO, the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) undertakes in-orbit scientific experiments using the spent PS4 stage as an orbital platform.

ISRO had earlier used its fourth stage as an Earth orbital platform in the PSLV-C44 mission. Launched in January 2019, PSLV-C44 was the first mission in the world to deploy a reusable final stage of a space mission. Taking a step forward, the latest PSLV-C53 will use the orbital platform to perform experiments in space, Mint reported.