Chennai, Dec 31 (UNI) The 25 hour countdown for the Monday New Year day launch of PSLV-C58/XPoSat, X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, mission along with 10 other payloads, began at the spaceport of Sriharikota on Sunday morning.
The 25 hour countdown began at 0810 hrs today, ISRO sources confirmed to UNI.
ISRO said “the 25 hour 00-minute countdown leading to the launch at 0910 hrs on January 1, 2024, has commenced today at 0810 hrs IST. #pslvc588#xposat@isro”.
After the Launch Authorisation Board and the Mission Readiness Review committee cleared the mission, the countdown has started.
During the countdown, propellant filling operations will take place in the four-stage vehicle, which has solid and liquid fuels.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sources on Saturday said the 44.4m tall PSLV-C58, in its 60th flight and fourth under DL variant, with a lift off mass of 260 tonnes, will take off from the First Launch Pad at 0910 hrs from the SHAR Range on Monday.
After an eventful, successful and a landmark 2023 with Chandrayaan-3 and Sun exploratory missions, ISRO is all set to ring in 2024 with the launch of the PSLV-C58/XPoSat mission on the New Year, which will set the tone for a series of missions, including Aditya spacecraft landing on L1 point a few days from now, and the prestigious INDO-US NASA collaboration NISAR Satellite launches this month.
About 20 minutes after the lift off, the 469 kg XPoSat will be injected into an Eastward low inclination orbit of 650 kms by the ISRO’s reliable workhorse PSLV Launch Vehicle.
After injection of XPOSAT, the PS4 stage will be re-started twice to reduce the orbit into 350 km circular orbit to maintain in 3-axis stabilized mode for Orbital Platform (OP) experiments.
The PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3 (POEM-3) experiment will be executed meeting the objective of 10 identified payloads, supplied by ISRO and IN-SPACe.
