ISRO completes launch rehearsal of PSLV-C51 mission, two satellites drop out

  Indian Research Organisation on Thursday completed launch rehearsal of PSLV-C51 mission slated for February 28. India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C51) is scheduled to launch Brazil's Amazonia-1 as primary satellite and 18 co-passenger satellites from first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota, about 100 km from Chennai, at 10.24 am on Sunday. Bengaluru-headquartered ncy had anunced on February 5 that re would be 20 co-passenger satellites.

Indian start-up Pixxel anunced two days ago that due to "certain software issues" its first satellite 'Anand' would longer be part of payload onboard PSLV-C51 rocket.

And on Thursday ISRO confirmed that its nasatellite INS-2DT will also be t part of mission.

"INS-2TD also faced some technical issues and could t make it to this flight, PSLV-C51," Chairman and Managing Director of ISRO's commercial arm New India Limited (NSIL) G Narayanan told PTI.

PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 mission is first dedicated PSLV commercial mission for NSIL, which is undertaking it under a commercial arrangement with Seattle, US-based satellite rideshare and mission manment provider, flight Inc.PSLV-C51 will use 'DL' variant of PSLV equipped with two solid strap-on boosters, according to ISRO.

637-kg Amazonia-1 is an optical earth observation satellite. 18 co-passenger satellites are four from IN- (three UNITYsats from a consortium of three Indian academic institutes and one Satish Dhawan Sat from Kidz India) and 14 from NSIL.

IN- (Indian National Promotion and Authorisation Centre) is an independent dal ncy under Department of (DoS) for allowing activities and us of DoS-owned facilities by NGPEs (n-Government- Private-Entities) as well as to prioritize launch manifest.