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PSLV bags first Australian order
Why it is in news?
- The Indian PSLV launcher has broken into a rising Australian space market and bagged its first small but promising order from Down Under.
- Fleet Space Technologies, an IoT (Internet of Things) start-up, disclosed that its first 10-kg nanosatellite Centauri I would fly to space on a PSLV later this year.
Nanosat
- The second nanosat, Centauri II, is to be launched on the U.S. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket later this year.
- The prospect for the PSLV is in the fact that Adelaide-based Fleet plans to put up a constellation of an unstated number of tiny satellites — all of which will need a suitable, timely launch vehicle to take them to space.
- Australia is in the throes of setting up its space agency and an industry around it. Adelaide in South Australia is the current hub of this activity.
- The PSLV’s three versions can lift satellites of 1,000-1,750 kg to distances of around 600 km in pole-to-pole orbits.
- A neat launch record has made the booster a trusted and affordable space vehicle for small satellites.
- Big rocket players are focussed on taking heavy, multi-tonne satellites to space.
- Since its first commercial launch in 1999, the PSLV has put in orbit 237 small satellites of 28 countries, About half of them are from the US.
Source
The Hindu