Indo-French satellite SARAL set for launch on February 25

Indo-French satellite 'SARAL',aimed at oceanographic studies, would be launched along with amix of six foreign mini and micro satellites on board PSLV-C20from the spaceport of Sriharikota on February 25.

The core-alone PSLV-20 is slated for the blast-off ataround 6 pm on that day, sources in Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) told PTI here.

The Bangalore-headquartered space agency had initiallyplanned to launch SARAL on December 12 last year but postponedit to carry out additional tests to "address technical issuesto ensure reliability".

The co-passengers of SARAL would be two micro-satellitesfrom Austria and one each from Denmark and Britain, as alsoone micro-satellite and one mini-satellite from Canada,the sources said.

ISRO officials said SARAL is a 410-kg satellite withpayloads -- Argos and Altika -- from French space agency CNESfor study of ocean parameters towards enhancing theunderstanding of the ocean state conditions which areotherwise not covered by the in-situ measurements.

The satellite has been built by ISRO, which would also takecare of the launch services.

SARAL will provide data products to operational andresearch user communities, in support of marine meteorologyand sea state forecasting; operational oceanography; seasonalforecasting; climate monitoring; ocean, earth system andclimate research, the officials said.

Altimeter (Altika) would help study the sea surface heightswhile Argos payload is a satellite-based data collectionplatform.

SARAL is a co-operative mission between Department ofSpace/ISRO and CNES, France with payloads from CNES and thespacecraft bus from DOS/ISRO.

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