ISRO successfully orbits Megha-Tropiques weather satellite
12 Oct 2011
Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced that it has successfully put the Indo-French joint venture, the Megha-Tropiques weather satellite, and three other smaller satellites into orbit.
Around 22 minutes into the flight the rocket first ejected Megha-Tropiques and followed up with that of the SRMSat, VesselSat and Jugnu.
The whole process was over 25 minutes after blast off. ISRO, with its network of ground stations, will monitor the health of satellites.
Megha-Tropiques will study the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics. The other three satellites include the SRMSat, a nanosatellite built by students of SRM University, the VesselSat-1, a microsatellite from Luxembourg and the Jugnu, a nanosatellite integrated by students of IIT Kanpur.
The PSLV-C18 has injected the Megha-Tropiques satellite into an orbit of 867 km altitude at an inclination of 20 deg with respect to the equator.
Megha is only the second such satellite to have been put into orbit. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) -- a joint mission of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall --was launched 27 November 1997.
