Sriharikota : On Saturday, ISRO’s PSLV C55 rocket carrying two Singapore satellites blasted out from the spaceport here. ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle delivered TeLEOS-2 as the principal satellite and Lumelite-4 as a co-passenger satellite into low earth orbit on its designated commercial mission through NSIL.
The 44.4-meter-tall rocket took off from the first launch pad after a 22.5-hour countdown at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, approximately 135 kilometres from Chennai. TeLEOS-2 is a synthetic aperture radar satellite created in collaboration with the Singapore government’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and ST Engineering.
After the satellite is launched into an orbit of around 586 km, it will be utilised to fulfil the satellite imaging needs of various agencies within the Singapore government. TeLEOS-2 is equipped with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload. It would be used to offer all-weather day and night coverage for Singapore, and it is capable of imaging at 1 metre complete polarimetric resolution.
The Institute for Infocomm Research and Satellite Technology, as well as the National University of Singapore’s Research Centre, collaborated on the Lumelite-4 satellite.
It is a high-tech 12U satellite designed to demonstrate the High-Performance Space-borne VHF data Exchange System (VDES). According to ISRO, the satellite’s goal is to improve Singapore’s e-navigation marine safety and help the worldwide shipping community.