Oceansat-2 and 6 nanosats successfully placed in orbit

Vijay Karthik
Sriharikota (AP), Sept 23 (PTI) Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday placed in orbit seven
satellites including Oceansat-2 within a span of 20 minutes,
its first successful mission after the abrupt end of the
ambitious Chandrayaan-I project.
At the end of the 51-hour countdown, the 44.4 metre tall
four-stage PSLV-C14 blasted off from the first launch pad at
the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here with ignition of the core
first stage and put the satellites in orbit one after another.
Scientists cheered as ISRO's workhorse, PSLV soared
majestically into clear skies at 11.51 AM from the spaceport
in the East Coast in Andhra Pradesh, about 100 km north of
Chennai,with the launch watched by Vice President Hamid Ansari
Oceansat-2, the country's 16th remote sensing satellite,
will identify potential fishing zones, sea state forecasting
and coastal zone studies, besides providing inputs on weather
forecasting and climate studies.

A set of six nano satellites rode piggyback accompanying
Oceansat-2 on its trip to orbit.

Ansari and senior scientist M G K Menon, who were present
in the mission centre, congratulated ISRO scientists soon
after the successful launch. MORE PTI