ISRO launches Israeli Satellite
Posted by akpwld on January 23, 2008
On Monday evening the Indian Space Agency ISRO Successfully launched the Israeli satellite Polaris from its launch center in southern Andra Pradesh, India. It was launched at 0915 hours using the respective launch vehicle called Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) as per informaed over phone from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, about 80 km north of the Tamil Nadu capital Chennai.
“It was a perfect launch in fine weather,” the official added.
The satellite has a payload of 340 kg.
The PSLV has a “core alone” configuration, only the second time such a configuration has been tried by the ISRO. The first time was with the Italian Agile satellite in April 2007, with PSLV C-8.
The core-alone PSLV weighs 230 tonnes, and can put satellites up to 600 kg into orbit.
The Polaris is considered a spy satellite by many countries in the Gulf and Pakistan, which were opposed to India carrying out the launch. It was scheduled to go up in September 2007 but had been put off to October. It was then rescheduled again for January 2008.
