Isro ready to better its ‘104’ launch feat

Isro, which launched 104 satellites on one rocket in a world record feat recently, is game to trying it again in the coming years.

According to Dr K.Sivan, director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanthapuram, more countries were looking to India to launch their satellites after the record mission,

He said discussions were going on such a project, but nothing had been finalised.

Asked whether Isro was considering to better its own record of 104 satellites, Dr Sivan said that they had capability to improve upon the number but it boiled down to the total mass of all satellites.

“The total mass of one main satellite and 103 other satellites was 1.7 tonnes. If we could reduce the mass of the main satellite, more smaller satellites could be accommodated,” he said.

Dr Sivan said that it took one year to conceive and execute the project. “When we started we had 60 satellites in mind, but later more countries joined in and the number increased to 104,” he said. Dr Sivan said only India had the technology and skill to separate such a huge number of satellites from the main satellite with flawless precision so that they did not collide in space.

“The whole world was amazed by the fact that Isro executed this project without any collision of even one satellite during separation. Our scientists took care of 5,000 combinations that might lead to collision. We completed the separation in 500 seconds,” he said.

Ten Isro scientists that were part of the world record launch were felicitated by Planjery Foundation, Hyderabad. Apart from Dr Sivan, the list included Mr B. Jayakumar, Mr R. Hutton, Mr T. Sundara Murthy, Mr I. Sudar, Mr B. Abraham, Mr A.G. Radhakrishnan, Mr K. Xavier Raja, Mr Deepak Negi and Ms Deepa Muralidharan.

Mr Jayakumar, project director, PSLV, stated that late President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, an acclaimed space scientist, was an inspiration to achieve the feat. He used to tell Isro scientists that they should aim to launch 100 satellites at a time. Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Isro chairman Dr A.S. Kiran Kumar could not attend the program due to pressing engagements.