New Delhi: India’s space agency ISRO will launch the Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 and 3 Indian payloads, built by the Indian start-up on 28 February. This will be the first space mission in 2021 by the Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research Organization (SRO).
The launch will be done from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) of Sriharikota on February 28 at 10.23 am. ISRO Chairman K Sivan had earlier described the upcoming mission as the beginning of ‘new age (field) reforms of space’ and called it ‘special for us, special for the whole country’.
Sivan said, PSLV-C51 (Mission) is going to be the first campaign of its kind in the country. This is going to usher in a new era of space reforms in India and I am sure these private people will take this activity further and provide services for it.
PSLV-C51 / Amazonia-1 is the first dedicated commercial mission of the Indian government company NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) under the Department of Space. NSIL is carrying out this mission under a commercial arrangement with Spaceflight Inc-USA. Amazonia-1 is the optical earth observation satellite of the National Space Research Institute (INPE).
ISRO said that this satellite will further strengthen the existing structure by providing remote sensory data to the users for monitoring deforestation in the Amazon region and analysis of diverse agriculture in the Brazilian region.