World In Awe As ISRO Launches 104 Satellites Successfully – 5 Interesting Facts About This Incredible Feat

Last year in September, ISRO had made India proud by launching 8 satellites in a single go, and placing them successfully into the orbit.

Today, ISRO has done something which not only makes us even more proud, but also places us miles ahead of what other space agencies have ever done: We have made a world record by launching 104 satellites in one single go!

At exactly 9.28 AM on February 15th, 2017, as the PSLV C-37 rocket launcher (1378 kg weight) took off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, history was being re-written as 104 satellites from 6 countries were launched into the space, in one single go.

Commenting on this world record, PM Modi tweeted:

Congratulations to @isro for the successful launch of PSLV-C37 and CARTOSAT satellite together with 103 nano satellites!

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 15, 2017

Here are 5 interesting facts about this incredible feat, which is a World record:

1) This was 39th mission of PSLV C37, and the most heaviest version of all at 320 tonnes at lift-off and standing high at 44.4 meters.

2) In the space, when the launcher released the satellites, every one of the 104 satellites were travelling at a speed of 27,000 km/hr, which is 40 times the speed of an average passenger aircraft.

3) Cartosat-2 series satellite was the main passenger of this special launch, which has been designed and created by ISRO. Weighing 680 kgs at the time of launch, Cartosat-2 is a specialized ‘Earth observation satellite’ in sun-synchronous orbit. This can create high-resolution images at a height of 1 meter, and is all set to benefit South East Asia in determining weather conditions.

4) Highest number of satellites in this galactic caravan belongs to US, as they have placed 96 satellites, for various objectives. The others are: BGUsat from Israel, Al-Farabi-1 from Kazakhstan, PEASSS from the Netherlands and Nayif-1 from UAE

5) Out of 96 satellites from US, 88 belong to a San Francisco based space company called Planet Inc. These are small satellites, called as Doves, and weigh only 4.7 kgs. These are infact Triple-CubeSat miniature satellites, and they will help scientists to gather crucial information related to climate monitoring, crop yield prediction, urban planning, and disaster response.

The previous record for launching maximum number of satellites belong to Russian Space Agency, when they had placed 37 satellites in one single go in 2014. If we talk about ISRO, then in June 2015, they had launched maximum of 23 satellites in one single go.

We had earlier reported that ISRO will now launch a mission for Venus, which would be India’s first; and a second mission to Mars, for which, NASA is keen on partnering with India.

India’s space saga has certainly climbed into a new dimension with this world record breaking feat of launching 104 satellites in one single go.

The Complete Launch Video

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4