SRIHARIKOTA: India has finally launched weather satellite Megha-Tropiques.With this, India became 2nd nation to launch such a space mission.The PSLV-C18 rocket carrying the Indo-French tropical weather satellite Megha-Tropiques and three other satellites was launched from Sriharikota. This has also marked 50th PSLV launch since its very 1st launch in 1993.
Megha-Tropiques is heaviest amongst the PSLV-C18’s payload and weighs 1,000 kg. It is a result of Indo-French collaboration designed to study the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics.It will help with scientific data on contribution of the water cycle to the tropical atmosphere with information on condensed water in clouds, water vapour in the atmosphere, precipitation and evaporation.
Its circular orbit is inclined 20 degree to the equator and will enable climate research apart from aiding scientists in refining weather prediction models.
Three parts of Megha-Tropiques: SAPHIR, SCARAB and GPS-ROS are built by entre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), while the fourth MADRAS has been made jointly by ISRO and CNES.
The other three satellites in the payload of PSLV-C18 are the 10.9 kg SRMSAT built by the students of SRM University, Chennai, the three kg remote sensing satellite Jugnu from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur and the 28.7 kg VesselSat from LuxSpace of Luxembourg to locate ships on high seas.
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