Five foreign satellites to be launched by ISRO on June 30

New Delhi: India will launch five satellites for France, Canada, Germany and Singapore on June 30 under commercial agreements, space agency ISRO said on Sunday.

The indigenous PSLV-C23 rocket will carry a 714 kg French Earth Observation Satellite 'SPOT-7' as the main payload. It will also carry 14 kg AISAT of Germany, NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) and two NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) satellites of Canada, each weighing 15 kg, and the 7 kg VELOX-1 of Singapore, it said.

These five satellites will be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR) in Sriharikota under commercial arrangements that ANTRIX, the marketing arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has entered into with the respective foreign agencies.

"All the five satellites have been integrated with PSLV-C23 and the final phase of checks is progressing. The Mission Readiness Review (MRR) Committee and the Launch Authorisation Board (LAB) are meeting on June 27 to review the progress of pre-launch activities.

"After the clearance from LAB, the 49-hour countdown for the mission will commence at 08:49AM on June 28," ISRO spokesperson B R Guruprasad said.

Since 1999, ISRO's Antrix has helped launch 35 satellites of countries like Germany, France, Canada, Singapore, Denmark, Austria, Japan, Luxemborg, Algeria, Sweden, Turkey, Argentina, Belgium, Israel, Italy and Korea.