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PSLV orbits commercial remote sensing satellite
09 September 2012
An Indian launcher lifted off Sunday and placed France's SPOT-6 commercial Earth imaging satellite and a Japanese secondary payload into orbit 400 miles high.
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle lifted off at 0423 GMT (12:23 a.m. EDT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island, India's primary launch site on the country's east coast about 50 miles north of Chennai. Launch occurred at 9:53 a.m. local time, a delay of two minutes from the targeted liftoff in order to avoid colliding with an object already in space. The 146-foot-tall launcher soared through a thin layer of clouds and disappeared from the view of ground cameras about a minute after liftoff, but telemetry radioed from the vehicle indicated it successfully deployed the Spot 6 Earth observation satellite.
The rocket also orbited the student-built Proiteres microsatellite for the Osaka Institute of Technology in Japan. The 1,569-pound SPOT-6 satellite will collect high-resolution imagery, resolving objects as small as 1.5 meters, or about 4.9 feet. A twin satellite named SPOT-7 is under construction for launch in 2014.
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Source: Spaceflight Now
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