ISRO’s XPoSat mission launched
X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) was launched today i.e., January 1 at 09:10 am from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota.
XPoSat has two payloads, Pollux and Expect, for the study of black holes and neutron stars. After 21 minutes, they were placed in an orbit 650 km above the Earth.
It is also India’s first and the world’s second polarimetry mission after NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), launched in 2021.
Apart from this, payloads of space tech startup Dhruv Space, Bellatrix Aerospace, TM2Space have also been sent with the PSLV rocket. A total of 10 payloads have been sent with this rocket.
Fourth stage brought into 350 Km orbit
After placing the satellite in an orbit of 650 km, its solar panels were opened to generate power. The fourth stage of the rocket was brought into Earth’s orbit of 350 km. This will be used as PSLV Orbital Experiment Module.
ISRO Chairman S Somnath said that ‘the fourth stage of the rocket could have been placed 650 km above for experiments, but this would have created debris in space. For this reason, we brought the fourth stage into an orbit of 350 Km, so that it would be destroyed after the experiment.’
Regarding this year’s missions, he said that 2024 will be the year of Gaganyaan. This year, there will be 2 test flights of Gaganyaan mission, after which an unmanned mission has been planned. Apart from this there are many other missions.
