Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday launched the first mission of 2021 at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 8.54am on Saturday.
At 10.24 am today, PSLV-C51 carrying Amazonia-1, an optical earth observation satellite from Brazil, and 18 other satellites lifted off from the launch pad at the Sriharikota spaceport. This is the 53rd flight of PSLV and the 78th launch vehicle mission.
As per reports, the 18 other satellites in the present mission include Satish Dhawan SAT (SDSAT) built by Space Kidz India and UNITYsat, a combination of three satellites, designed and built by three colleges — Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology in Coimbatore, JPR Institute of Technology in Sriperumbudur and GH Raisoni College of Engineering in Nagpur. It also includes SindhuNetra, an Indian technology demonstration satellite, SAI-1 NanoConnect-2, a technology demonstration satellite from the US, and 12 SpaceBEEs satellites for two-way satellite communications and data relay.
A Government of India company under the department of space, PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 mission is the first mission PSLV commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL). The mission is undertaken in collaboration with Spaceflight Inc, US.
