ISRO's LVM-3 Successfully Launches 36 Satellites, Its Heaviest Payload Ever

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched a total of 36 satellites of Bharti-backed OneWeb into space on Sunday. This enabled the completion of the UK firm’s first generation (Gen-1) Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation.

The launch of GSLV-Mk3 or LVM3 took place at 9 am today and was smoothly conducted as scheduled. It completed the approximately 20-minute launch sequence before separation with the desired precision.

The mission director for LVM3-M3, S Mohan Kumar said, “...The orbital parameters were all achieved. The 36 satellites were deployed in a sequential manner – nine steps with four satellites each.”

The first two batches of satellites separated in the 19^th minute, while the next two took place 13 minutes later. The final 20 satellites separated out of visible range with ISRO getting the final confirmation after 10.10 am.

The Chairman of ISRO, S Somnath said, “I am very happy for consecutive launch success of GSLV-Mk3 or LVM3 and want to thank NSIL for bringing this opportunity to us and OneWeb for having the confidence. I congratulate ISRO for making LVM4 reliable, rugged and demonstrating its capabilities of launching large, heavy payloads into the right orbit without any glitches. We look forward to greater engagement with commercial partners for making this rocket one of the best in its class.”

It may be noted that today’s mission was the second such dedicated commercial satellite mission undertaken by Space PSU NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) for Network Access Associates Ltd (OneWeb).

“Having a great repeat performance of any launcher is not an easy thing to do and today’s mission is extremely momentous for us. A special thing seen in this mission is using the cryogenic stage to do such a complex maneuver to meet OneWeb’s requirement to deploy 36 satellites. This is very challenging and ISRO has repeated this for the second time. We are happy to be a part of OneWeb’s big journey in the last three years and want to reassure them that NSIL will continue to engage to meet any other requirement,” said NSIL CMD Radhakrishnan D.

Meanwhile, today’s launch marked LVM3’s – ISRO’s heaviest-ever launch vehicle – sixth successive launch, which is surely good news for India and will help in commercializing the rocket in the near future.

“This time we’ve completed the launch campaign in record 72 days and the LVM-3 has shown its might and ruggedness in taking the heaviest payload from our soil to the precise orbit. We did the assembly in the newly built second vehicle assembly building wherein from the nozzle trial actuation to the S200 stacking and the entire vehicle integration was carried out under one roof and the vehicle was moved to the pad using a newly built track,” mentioned Mohan Kumar.

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