India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its forty second flight (PSLV-C40) launched the 710 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite for earth observation and 30 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 613 kg at lift-off. PSLV-C40 was launched from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.

The co-passenger satellites comprised one Micro-Satellite and one Nano-Satellite from India as well as 3 Microsatellites and 25 Nanosatellites from six countries, namely, Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, UK and USA. The total weight of all the 31 satellites carried on-board PSLV-C40 is about 1,323 kg.

Unique Mission

The PSLV C40 executed a series of complex manoeuvres for the shutdown and reignition of the rocket's 4th Stage engine after injecting Cartosat-2 satellite.

The engines in the fourth stage was reignited once, in a bid to lower the altitude from around 500 km to around 350 km to inject the remaining Micro and Nano satellites in space.


The 28 International customer satellites was launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS), the commercial arm of ISRO and the International customers.

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