The PSLV-C38 on Thursday launched 31 satellites into the orbit. Though not as grand as its predecessor C37 that launched 104 satellites, C38 was successful in launching satellites into different orbits.
This is the 40th flight of the PSLV and was launched at 2:29 P.M., from the coast of Sriharikota on the first launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR).
Sixteen minutes after take off, the 712 kg Cartosat satellite was first deployed into the designated 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). Seven minutes after that, all the remaining 30 nano satellites were deployed at an altitude of 520 km.
29 satellites belonged to 14 different countries. They included Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdom and the United States. One of the nano satellites included one from Tamil Nadu, Noorul Islam University of Kanyakumari. The weight of all the 31 satellites combined is about 955 kg.
A.S. Kiran Kumar, the ISRO chairman credited the success to the entire team.
