India launched the PSLV-XL rocket for the nation’s first mission of 2022. Following last August’s EOS-03 GSLV launch failure, ISRO returned to flight with the workhorse rocket. For this flight, PSLV will carry the EOS-04 radar Earth observation satellite along with two secondary payloads.
The PSLV-C52 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket embarked on ISRO’s 80th orbital launch at 00:29 UTC on Monday, February 14th (05:59 Indian Standard Time; 7:29pm EST February 13th) from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
This launch was the first of six planned for 2022, as ISRO attempts to fly a backlog of flights delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions, as well as by some issues with payloads that needed to be fixed. The August 2021 launch failure has also caused further delays to some launches.
As ISRO works to clear its backlog of delayed flights, it does so under new leadership as well. The EOS-04 mission will be the first flown under the leadership of Sreedhara Somanath, the former director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and a veteran aerospace engineer. He succeeds K. Sivan, who acted as ISRO chairman from 2018 to this year.
The main payload on Monday’s flight was the EOS-04 (Earth Observation System-04) satellite, which is a 1.7-ton Earth observation satellite equipped with a C-band radar. This will allow the satellite to image the Earth under all weather and lighting conditions.