ISRO to launch nine commercial and one earth observation satellite by November

The Indian Space Research Organization will be launching nine commercial satellites and one earth observation satellite scheduled during the afternoon hours on November 7. This will be the debut launch for the year 2020 from the exclusive space port of India, located in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

An official statement from ISRO revealed, “India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its 51st mission, will launch EOS-01 as a primary satellite along with nine international customer satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The launch is tentatively scheduled at 1502 hours IST on November 07, 2020, subject to weather conditions.”

Another Indian satellite launched in 2020 was the heavy-communication satellite GSAT-30, which was subjected to launch from Kourou, French Guiana, conducted by commercial launcher Arianespace.

The space agency had planned on various projects, but the Covid-19 induced pandemic led to a break on the big ticket projects scheduled for 2020 and 2021. India had prepared for the launch of its debut solar mission in the first half of 2020, and also worked on launching third lunar mission with only the lander and the rover was scheduled for the end of 2020 or first half of the forthcoming year.

Moreover, plans were also ready for the human spaceflight programme, declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence day address in 2018, with an attempt towards first unmanned human-related vehicle launch for December 2020.