India's PSLV rocket with Resourcesat-2A lifts off

Representational picture

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh): An Indian rocket named Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off successfully on Wednesday morning with the country's earth observation satellite Resourcsat-2A.

The PSLV-XL variant rocket standing 44.4 metre tall and weighing 321 ton tore into the morning skies around 10.25 a.m. with a deep throated growl breaking free of the Earth's gravitational pull.

The rocket was ferrying India's earth observation satellite Resourcesat-2A weighing 1,235 kg.The PSLV rocket is a four stage/engine rocket powered by solid and liquid fuel alternatively. Around 18 minutes into the flight, the rocket will sling the satellite into an 817 km polar sun synchronous orbit.According to ISRO, Resourcesat-2A is a follow on mission to Resourcesat-1 and Resourcesat-2, launched in 2003 and 2011 respectively.

The new satellite Resourcesat-2A is intended to continue the remote sensing data services to global users provided by it two predecessors.The Resourcesat-2A carries three payloads which are similar to those of the earlier two Resourcesat's. They are a high resolution Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS-4) camera operating in three spectral bands in the Visible and Near Infrared Region (VNIR) with 5.8 m spatial resolution and steerable up to ± 26 degree across track to achieve a five day revisit capability.

The second payload is the medium resolution LISS-3 camera operating in three-spectral bands in VNIR and one in Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) band with 23.5 m spatial resolution.The third payload is a coarse resolution Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) camera operating in three spectral bands in VNIR and one band in SWIR with 56 m spatial resolution.

The satellite also carries two Solid State Recorders with a capacity of 200 Giga Bits each to store the images taken by its cameras which can be read out later to ground stations. The mission life of Resourcesat-2A is five years.