ISRO begins 2024 with sucessful launch of XPoSAT

January 1, 2024

Sriharikota: India on Monday ushered in the New Year in a grand manner by orbiting its X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) ISRO and the space agency will also test its fuel cell, a precursor for powering the Indian space station whenever it is built.

At about 9.10 a.m. on the first day of the calendar year 2024, India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C58 (PSLV-C58) standing 44.4-metre tall, with a lift off mass of 260 ton blasted off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, here. The rocket carried XPoSat and 10 other experimental payloads on its fourth stage.

Slowly rising up towards the skies with a thick orange flame at its tail, the rocket gained speed with a sound resembling rolling thunder and went up leaving a thick plume while the people assembled at the viewing gallery clapped their hands with pride. Interestingly, this is the first space mission for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on January 1.  At about 21 minutes into its flight, the rocket ejected XPoSat at an altitude of about 650 km.

Speaking after the launch ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said: “The orbit accomplished for XPoSat is excellent as the deviation is just three kilometres. The solar panels of the satellite have been deployed.”After orbiting the XPoSat, the rocket’s fourth stage — PS4 stage — will be lowered to 350km, about 9.6 degree orbit, by restarting it twice. The Indian space agency will now use the fourth stage as an orbital.

“We could have done the experiments at the 650km altitude. We decided to bring down the stage so that we don’t create more space debris,” Somanath said. He said the remaining fuel on the fourth stage will be dumped uniquely. The left-out propellant in the PS4 will be disposed of through the main engines as a precursor to enabling the safety of the PS4 stage in atmosphere reentry experiments planned in the future, ISRO said.