Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to launch the four nanosatellites in October 2022 under commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO.
Spaceflight, the leading global launch services provider, today announced it will launch four Astrocast 3U spacecraft aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) mission under a commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL). This mission, scheduled for October 2022, will launch from Sriharikota, India’s Satish Dhawan Space Center, carrying the Astrocast spacecraft as a co-passenger to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) along with the Indian national primary satellite.
them a range of launch options, flexibility and customization to support their long-term plans.”
Astrocast is a long-time Spaceflight customer. In March 2022, the Satellite IoT (SatIoT) network operator extended its multi-launch agreement with Spaceflight to accommodate Astrocast’s fast-growing IoT constellation. Spaceflight has previously successfully launched all 12 of Astrocast’s spacecraft into orbit, including demonstration models dating back to Spaceflight’s historic SSO-A mission in 2018 and PSLV-C45 in 2019. The companies most recently partnered and successfully launched an additional five nanosatellites on SpaceX Transporter-1 in January 2021.
“This launch is helping us get closer to accomplishing our mission of building and operating the most advanced and sustainable satellite IoT network,” said Kjell Karlsen, CFO of Astrocast.
“Our long-standing relationship with Spaceflight and their access to, and experience with, an extensive portfolio of vehicles has provided us with the flexibility and customisation needed to launch our satellites. Assured access to space is critical for us as we grow our network and our partnership with Spaceflight enables us to efficiently build out our constellation.”
The uniqueness of Astrocast’s nanosatellite IoT network can be attributed to the fact that its Low-Earth-Orbit constellation of satellites offers users cost-effective, bidirectional communication and modules with long battery life that connect assets moving across its network.
The small sized modules and antenna allow systems integrators to place a module on any device, from fishing buoys to container trackers or moving animals. Astrocast’s solution has been designed to minimize the need for human intervention and repair, wherever possible, safeguarding the IoT business case.
2022 has been a year of innovation and leadership for Spaceflight, with successful inaugural launches of its Sherpa-AC and Sherpa-LTC vehicles. Its next notable OTV mission will take place in mid-2023, launching Spaceflight’s Sherpa-ES, a bipropellant, high delta-V OTV, aboard the much-anticipated lunar slingshot mission, GEO Pathfinder. To date, the company has executed more than 50 launches taking more than 450 customer payloads to orbit.
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