Launch of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) carrying the CARTOSAT-2B satellite.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV– C15) today (July 12, 2010) successfully launched CARTOSAT–2B satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.  The launch of PSLV–C15 was the sixteenth consecutively successful flight of PSLV.

After a smooth countdown of 51 hours, the vehicle lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at the opening of the launch window at   09.22 hrs (IST).  After about 20 minutes of flight time, India`s advanced remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT–2B, along with four auxiliary satellites, was successfully injected into its circular orbit of 637  km with an orbital inclination of 98.1 deg.

PSLV–C15 in its flight, in addition to CARTOSAT – 2B, carried four auxiliary satellites, namely, STUDSAT, a picosatellite weighing less than 1 kg, built jointly by students from a consortium of seven engineering colleges from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, ALSAT-2A from Algeria, two nanosatellites NLS 6.1 and NLS 6.2 from University of Toronto, Canada.