BENGALURU: The 100th satellite produced by the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Satellite Centre will be put into orbit aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), scheduled for launch on January 12.
Director of the Centre M Annadurai said that a total of 31 satellites will be launched via the PSLV. "We will have different families of satellites - such as microsats and nanosats - put into orbit. Of the 31 satellites, 28 are from foreign nations and three are from India," he said.
On the failure of the recent launch, he said that scientists at ISRO have understood the problem and have done repeated testing to ensure that the problem does not repeat in the near future.
According to a release by the ISRO, PSLV - which is in its forty-second flight - will launch the 710 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation and 30 co-passenger satellites which have a combined weight of 613 kgs. The launch will be from Satish Dhawam Space Centre, Sriharikota.
Apart from Cartosat-2, the payload will consist of one microsatellite and one nanosatellite from India, and three micro and 25 nanosatellites from six countries — Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, UK and USA.
Annadurai said that Chandrayaan-2 was in its final stages of testing and integration and is expected to be launched in March this year. On Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), he said that following the failure of IRNSS-1H last August, IRNSS-1I will be put into space. Full integration of the satellite is being done by private industry in collaboration with ISRO, he added.