ISRO gears up to launch INSAT-3DR this month

The GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) Mark II will carry the geostationary weather satellite INSAT-3DR. We are looking to launch it by end of August, ISRO Satellite Centre Director Maylsamy Annadurai told reporters here on Sunday on the sidelines of a function. 

The space agency had successfully launched INSAT-3D, a satellite aided search and rescue satellite, from French Guiana in 2013. ISRO made its last successful launch of 20 satellites, including its earth observation Cartosat-2 series, in a single mission on board ISRO’s workhorse PSLV-C34 from the spaceport of Sriharikota last month. 

ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar had recently said that the space agency was planning to increase the number of rocket launches from the present eight to 12 every year. 

Another report claimed that August 28 has been tentatively fixed as the launching date and added that the satellite is yet to reach the rocket port. “With improved shock absorbing aspects during the transit, nowadays Indian satellites are first sent for filling of fuel and then to the clean room. We have avoided one testing stage of the satellite and thereby cut down the launch time,” a senior ISRO official has been quoted as saying. “However foreign satellites that ISRO launches with its PSLV rockets will be tested in full without skipping even the first clean room.” 

In September 2016, ISRO will launch ScatSat — a weather monitoring and forecasting satellite — with polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV). The Indian satellite will be a co-passenger of an Algerian satellite.