All set for PSLV mission, countdown progressing smoothlyThe Stage is all set to launch of PSLV-C18, which will hurtle into space the 1000 kg Indo-French climate monitoring satellite Megha-Tropiques and three other nano satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on Wednesday morning.

The Stage is all set to launch of PSLV-C18, which will hurtle into space the 1000 kg Indo-French  climate monitoring satellite Megha-Tropiques and three other nano satellites  from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on Wednesday morning.

The 50-hour countdown for the launch of Indo-French climate monitoring satellite Megha-Tropiques and three other nano satellites on board PSLV-C18 on October 12 from the spaceport of Sriharikota is progressing well.  

They are the Megha-Tropiques satellite, SRMSat, Jugnu and VesselSat.

S. Satish, spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation, said the Launch Authorisation Board, which met at Sriharikota on October 9, cleared the launch of the four-stage PSLV- C18 and “various activities during the 50-hour countdown are progressing smoothly.”

''The countdown is progressing with butter smoothness. There are no hitches so far. The fourth stage has been fuelled up. Fuelling of the second stage will be taken up this evening,' the sources added.

Apart from the Megha Tropique satellite, which would study climatic and atmospheric changes in tropical regions, three other nano satellites would ride piggy back.    

The three nano satellites are the 10.4-kg SRMSAT built by students of SRM University, the three kg remote sensing satellite Jugnu developed by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur and the 28 kg VesselSat from Luxumbourg to locate ships on high seas.