ISRO Chief K. Sivan Confirms GSAT-30 Communication Satellite Launch On January 17

ISRO chief K. Sivan has announced that ISRO is all set to launch its heavy communication satellite GSAT-30 on January 17. The launch will be conducted from the Kourou space centre which is situated in French Guiana. The communication satellite GSAT-30 will be onboard the Ariane-5 rocket which is a part of the Ariane rocket family designed by European Space Agency (Arianespace) to lift heavy satellites.

"The launch of GSAT-30 from Kouru will be our first satellite in the New Year (2020) to augment capacity to provide communication links to state-run and private service providers," Gadgets 360 quoted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman as saying.

Meanwhile, Sivan has also confirmed that ISRO is aiming for 25 launches in 2020, which will include the launch of Aditya-L1 satellite as well. It will be sent to the halo orbit which is around the Lagrangian point. This will be 1.5 million km away from planet Earth.

Aditya is sent to understand the solar corona and it will stay thousands of kilometres above the photosphere or corona. Just in case you don't know, the solar corona is the external layers of the sun.

"The corona has more than a million degree Kelvin temperature, which is higher than the solar disc temperature of 6,000K. How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics," said ISRO in a statement earlier.

Aditya will also learn about the ultra-violet radiations and also about the pieces of particles flowing from the sun and reaching to the L1 orbit. Aditya will also be equipped with magnetometer payload which is going to measure the fluctuation in the magnetic field at halo and L1. It will also detect the strength of the magnetic field.

Rest of the launches includes SSLV in the lower orbit of the earth, GSLV with 4-meter heat shield, NavIC, GSAT-20 satellite, Data tracking satellite and Xposat.

"During 2019, six launch vehicle and seven satellite missions were realised by us. The year also marked also marked the 50th launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the workhorse of the space agency," report quoted ISRO chief K.Sivan.