NEW DELHI. July 12 (Interfax) - The Indian launch vehicle PSLV-C15 carrying five satellites successfully took off at 9:22 a.m. on Monday from the Shriharikota space center in southern India.
The fifteenth takeoff of the launch vehicle went without a hitch - there were no technical problems, the weather conditions were favorable - everything promoted success, official spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) S. Satish told Interfax. The rocket entered the designed trajectory in due time, he added.
He said that the PSLV launch was scheduled for May 9 but was put off due to a drop in pressure in the second stage of the rocket.
The main "passenger" of the space rocket is the new Indian land remote sensing satellite Cartosat-2B. The resolution of the satellite's images will reach 0.8 m.
The launch vehicle also carried StudSat (Student Satellite). It is the first satellite developed by a group of students from Karnataka and Andhra-Pradesh who pooled their efforts with ISRO support back in 2007. It carries a camera for taking images of the Earth with a resolution of 94 m.
The payload also includes the Algerian mini satellite ALSAT-2A weighing 130 kilograms and two Canadian and two Swiss nano satellites.
During the past few years ISRO has been launching space rockets regularly. With the launch of Cartosat-2B ISRO will have 10 remote sensing satellites in terrestrial space, Satish said.
He said three more satellites are expected to be added to them in the near future - RISAT (to be launched at the end of 2010 - the beginning of 2011), Resorucesat and Megha-Tropiques.