The countdown for the launch of ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C43 began Wednesday morning at 0558 hrs. The processes during the countdown phase are going on smoothly in its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The processes include the fuelling of the two liquid fuel stages of the rocket and systems check.

The PSLV-C43 is set to lift off from its first launch pad carrying India's latest earth observation satellite HysIS, at 0958 hrs on Thursday (November 29) morning. The highly versatile rocket would carry thirty other co-passenger satellites from eight nations.

According to reports that the hyper-spectral imaging satellite HysIS will be the principal payload for the rocket PSLV-C43. This will be the 68th launch mission for the ISRO from Sriharikota and the sixth one this year. For number crunch, this is the second launch this month. The rocket PSLV will put the satellite HysIS first at an altitude of about 637 kilometer.

Then it will be switched off and on twice to take the other thirty small satellites to an entirely different orbit of about 505-kilometer height and inject them one after the other in quick succession. The novel technology has already been mastered by the ISRO through several test missions in the recent past.