India's first rocket in 2022! The successful delivery of 3 satellites into the predetermined orbit is a major good news for India in the implementation of the 2022 space mission, after all, the "first launch success", not to mention that India is "one arrow and three stars", relatively speaking, it is also a challenging mission.
According to the news released by the Indian Space Research Organization, the country's launch is the use of PSLV-C52 carrier rocket, which is also a strong rocket for India. The PSLV-C52 is the 54th mission of The Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) program, and let's first look at this rocket.
The PSLV rocket has also carried out many space missions in India, and the entire PSLV rocket is more than 40 meters high, weighs about 295 tons, and the diameter of the rocket is about 2.8 meters. It uses a four-stage solid liquid mixed propellant, and the biggest highlight is that the rocket - the first stage rocket thruster is one of the largest thrusters in the world, which is relatively powerful.
However, the overall height of the rocket is slightly shorter than Japan's H-2B carrier rocket and China's Long March 3B carrier rocket.
PSLV rockets are capable of carrying approximately 129 to 138 tons of end-hydroxy polybutadiene propellant, and the launch can produce a maximum thrust of 4762 kN in a period of about 107 seconds.
So it's also a pretty good rocket. The PSLV rocket mainly pays three satellites, RISAT-1A (EOS-04), "INSPIREsat-1" and "INS-2TD", of which the most concerned may be the EOS-04 satellite system.
What exactly is the EOS-04 satellite system used for?
"EOS-04" is a radar imaging satellite, which is a dual-use radar imaging satellite specially developed in India, which belongs to the category of Earth observation satellites. Radar imaging satellites mean that objects on the ground can be identified and images can be integrated for observation.
When the satellite is in orbit, the spaceborne synthetic aperture radar beam can scan the ground object, and after scanning, it can emit pulsed electromagnetic waves and receive signals reflected by the target.
In this way, the satellite can directly process the captured data, and obtain the target data, on the satellite or sent back to the ground for data processing to obtain the target image, which is considered "two-way processing".
The resolution of this radar imaging is very high, and it can work all day, that is, it can achieve 24-hour scanning, even if there is a mask on the ground, it can be identified, and it also has the ability to observe the geological conditions on the ground.
So, very powerful, "EOS-04" is a satellite that cannot be underestimated. According to publicly available data, the entire satellite weighs 1710 kilograms and has a mission life of up to 10 years, so it will certainly implement "standby satellites" in the future, of course, satellites have design lifespans, which is the same in any country.
At the same time, in addition to having a very strong detection capability, it also has what we call military potential, which can be used for military surveillance and other strengths, which is a dual-use satellite system. So, don't underestimate India, the first space mission launch in 2022, there is a "big play". Of course, in addition to this mission, India will carry out a lot of tasks in 2022.
According to the target released by the Indian Space Research Organization, the plan for 2022 is to launch 8 launch vehicles and perform 4 technology demonstration missions. The most critical of these is the launch of the first unmanned spacecraft of India's manned space program, which is a step further for India to implement a manned spacecraft mission.
The spacecraft designed by India can carry 3 astronauts in orbit for 7 days, and it can be said that the goal of this plan may be to compete with other countries. Of course, this is also in preparation for India's development of the space station.
India has announced that it will build its first space station in 2030, can it be successful? Can it really be built? Judging by the first launch in 2022, it is necessary to be highly vigilant against India's technological developments.
According to the vision of the space station, it is expected to be a space station weighing 20 tons, which is indeed much smaller than the Chinese space station, and the total weight of the Chinese space station can reach 180 tons. So, from the data point of view, this also seems to belong to a small space station.
At the same time, this project is still under study, not to say that the launch can be launched immediately, whether the construction of the space station can be realized in 2030 is still unknown. Even before India's space mission, there were also failures.
In August last year, India's launch of the Earth observation satellite "EOS-03" using the "GSLV-F10" carrier rocket failed, although the reason was also announced, because of the technical failure, the launch of the third stage of the launch vehicle cryogenic engine failed to ignite, resulting in the launch failure.
However, this is not a typical example of failure, including India's previous lunar plan, Chandrayaan 2 also failed to launch. Therefore, there are many failure cases in India, and even if this mission is successful, it does not mean that the subsequent space mission is very smooth.
The construction of the space station is also more difficult, it is not a single rocket launch, whether the space station can really be built in 2030, it depends on the ability to perform later, and technology is the most critical. So let's look at India's challenge in the future.