Satellites on board

PSLV-C3 will carry on board three satellites, the India’s Technology Experiment Satellite (TES), a Belgian satellite, PROBA and a German satellite, BIRD. While TES and BIRD will be placed in a 568 km sun-synchronous orbit, the third satellite, PROBA, will be raised to an elliptical orbit of 568 x 638 km by firing the RCS thrusters of the fourth stagemotor of PSLV-C3.

TES (Technology Experiment Satellite)

TES, weighing 1108 kg, is an experimental satellite to demonstrate and validate, in orbit, technologies that could be used in the future satellites of ISRO. Some of the technologies that are planned to be demonstrated in TES are attitude and orbit control system, high torque reaction wheels, new reaction control system with optimised thrusters and a single propellant tank, light weight spacecraft structure, solid state recorder, X-band phased array antenna, improved satellite positioning system, miniaturised TTC and power system and, two-mirror-on-axis camera optics. TES will also carry a panchromatic camera for remotesensing experiments.

PROBA (Project for On Board Autonomy)

PROBA of Verhaert, Belgium, is a small satellite weighing 94 kg. The payloads in the satellite include high resolution camera with 115 mm diameter aperture and wide angle camera having aperture of 60 mm.

BIRD (Project for On Board Autonomy)

BIRD of the German Space agency, DLR, is a small satellite weighing 92 kg, intended for testing small satellite technologies and a newgeneration of infrared sensors for the detection of hot spots like forestfires and volcanoes from space.