Chennai, Aug 1 (FN Agency) India’s maiden flight of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) mission will take place on August seven, Sunday. The Indian Space Reserach Organisation (ISRO) on Monday announced that the launch of SSLV-D1 (first developmental flight) carrying the 142 kg earth observation satellite (EOS-02), carrying an infrared camera with six metre resolution, and a micro satellite will take place from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), SHAR Range, Sriharikota, at 0918 hrs on August seven. The 8 kg microsatellite AzaadiSat was built by 750 girl students of government schools, thanks to the initiative by Spacekidz India, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence–Azaadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
According to SpaceKidz India, 10 girl students each from 75 government schools across India were selected for this project. The selected students were from classes 8th to12th. This is a first of its kind space mission with an ‘All women concept’ to promote Women in STEM as this year’s UN theme is “ Women in Space”, SpaceKidz India said. Niti Aayog has partnered for this project to bring this opportunity to the Government school girl student across India and Hexaware is funding the project. The SSLV mission, intended to carry satellites upto 500 kg, will help ISRO carry out more missions to place the satellites in the low earth orbits. SSLV will be ISRO’s third launch vehicle, adding to its versatile and the workhorse PSLV and the heavy vehicle launcher GSLV.