ISRO Successfully Launched Two Singaporean Satellites, Powered On Seven Payloads For In-Orbit Scientific Experiments

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday (22 April) successfully launched two Singaporean satellites into orbit.

TeLEOS-2 and Lumelite-4 were placed into their intended 586 km circular orbit by a polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C55).

Along with the satellites, the rocket also carried out scientific experiments with seven payloads attached to its 'PS4' upper stage.

The launch took place at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 2.19 pm.

It was the fifty-seventh flight of the PSLV and the sixteenth flight with a core-alone (CA) variant, which is the lightest version of the launch vehicle as it has only four core stages and no strap-on boosters to give added thrust.

TeLEOS-2, developed under a partnership between DSTA (representing the Government of Singapore) and ST Engineering, will support the satellite imagery requirements of various Singaporean government agencies.

The satellite carries a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payload and can provide all-weather day and night coverage. It is capable of imaging at 1 m full-polarimetric resolution.

Lumelite-4 is developed jointly by the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) of the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) and the Satellite Technology and Research Centre (STAR) of the National University of Singapore.

It is an advanced 12U satellite developed for the technological demonstration of the High-Performance Space-borne VHF Data Exchange System (VDES).

Using the VDES communication payload, the satellite aims to augment Singapore’s e-navigation maritime safety and benefit the global shipping community.

After the separation of satellites, the PS4 upper stage of the rocket turned into an orbital platform, called PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-2 or POEM-2, to perform in-orbit scientific experiments with seven non-separable payloads attached to it.

The POEM-2 payloads are the ARIS-2 and PiLOT experiments from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, the ARKA200 electric propulsion system from Bellatrix, the Starberry sense payload from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and the DSOL, DSOD-3U, and DSOD-6U units from Dhruva Space.

If everything goes well, POEM-2 will function for the next one month. "It is for the first time that we are deploying a solar panel in PS4. We'll update on the performance of POEM through our social media handles,” said S Somanath, the chairman of ISRO.