ISRO launches 36 satellites in 1st commercial launch for LVM-3

A constellation of 36 broadband satellites constructed by OneWeb and launched to Low Earth Orbit on Sunday by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Saturday. The LVM3-M2/OneWeb India-1 Mission successfully launched 36 satellites into their assigned orbits, according to the ISRO.

The satellites were launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on the Launch Vehicle Mark-III, a renamed version of the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mk-III). At 12.07. the launch went occurred. Although GSLV LVM 3 has a 10 tonne payload capacity, the rocket only launched with 6 tonne.

According to a contract between OneWeb and New Space India Limited, this is LVM-3’s first commercial launch (NSIL).

The rocket will not launch satellites into geosynchronous orbit, which is the only reason the name of the vehicle was changed from GSLV to LVM. The OneWeb satellites are in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is 1,200 kilometres above the Earth. On the other hand, the geosynchronous orbit is situated 35,786 kilometres above the equator of the planet.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, the chairman of OneWeb, said the following to India Today: “Six launches for OneWeb were necessary, but they were postponed because of the geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine. India was quite helpful. By relocating a few other missions, we were able to bring in two launches on a priority basis.”

The satellites are a component of the OneWeb constellation of 468 spacecraft, which was launched into Leo Earth Orbit to bring Internet access to remote locations. For the launch, OneWeb signed a contract worth more than Rs 1000 crore, and a subsequent GSLV launch with a OneWeb payload is scheduled for January 2023.

Two solid strap-on boosters and a liquid core stage that have been installed at the second launch pad are the components of the GSLV-Mk-III that have been equipped to deploy the satellites in LEO.

“OneWeb, a private communications company, will launch 36 satellites on board ISRO’s LVM3 rocket. The launch is 24 hours away, and the countdown has begun. In the first part of next year, the LVM3 will launch a second batch of 36 OneWeb satellites “Chairman of ISRO and scientist S. Somanath told ANI.

According to ISRO Chairman Dr. S. Somanath, the launch of LVM-3 was a historic mission made possible by PM Modi’s assistance because the latter wanted LVM3 to enter the commercial market.