Chennai: India is priming to fire into orbit October 12 a satellite designed to help study climatic and atmospheric changes in the tropics, the country's space agency said yesterday.
"The rocket and its payload have been assembled and the heat shield has been closed. The first round of tests are over and we will have a final review. The launch rehearsal will be on October 8," an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said.
Confident
Preparations are in full swing at Sriharikota, the rocket launch site in Tamil Nadu around 80km from Chennai, and Indian space scientists say they are confident they will be able to fill the ferrying vessel with propellant October 10.
The official, who did not want to be identified, said the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will ferry the 1,000-kilogram Megha Tropique and three smaller satellites together weighing 45 kilograms.
Megha Tropiques is an Indo-French collaboration to study climatic and atmospheric changes in tropical regions and will make India the second nation in the world to launch such a space mission.
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 November 27, 1997.
For ISRO, this will be the third rocket launch this year from India. In April, the agency successfully launched remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 and two others. In July, communication satellite GSAT-12 was put in orbit.
"The rocket and its payload have been assembled and the heat shield has been closed. The first round of tests are over and we will have a final review. The launch rehearsal will be on October 8," an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said.
Confident
Preparations are in full swing at Sriharikota, the rocket launch site in Tamil Nadu around 80km from Chennai, and Indian space scientists say they are confident they will be able to fill the ferrying vessel with propellant October 10.
The official, who did not want to be identified, said the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will ferry the 1,000-kilogram Megha Tropique and three smaller satellites together weighing 45 kilograms.
Megha Tropiques is an Indo-French collaboration to study climatic and atmospheric changes in tropical regions and will make India the second nation in the world to launch such a space mission.
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 November 27, 1997.
For ISRO, this will be the third rocket launch this year from India. In April, the agency successfully launched remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 and two others. In July, communication satellite GSAT-12 was put in orbit.
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