The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch 10 satellites at one go on April 28, 2008. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will carry a mini satellite IMS-1, Cartosat- 2A, a remote sensing satellite and eight other nano satellites. IMS-1 weighs 83 kgs and it will operate at an altitude of 635 kms. The life span of the satellite is 2 years. Cartosat- 2A weighs 690 kgs and will be used for urban and rural development planning and gathering intelligence reports.

 

The 8 nano satellites  which will be launched along with Cartosat-2A and IMS-1 weighs between 3 kgs to 16 kgs and are built in the research universities and institutions of Germany and Canada. The satellites will be launched at 9:20am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. There are two cameras fitted in the IMS-1 namely multispectral camera and hyperspectral camera. The former has a resolution of 37 meters while the later has the resolution of 506 meters.

 

The launch of IMS-1 will help in future space missions and will also be helpful for experimenting remote sensing technologies. IMS-1 will follow Cartosat-2A which will be placed in the first orbit. Then within an interval of few seconds the other eight satellites will place themselves in the orbit. This has to be done with lot of care to ensure that the satellites are placed at the right time and at the right angle.