New Delhi: ISRO will launch the second developmental flight of SSLV from Sriharikota on Friday. According to the ISRO’s announcement on Wednesday the SSLV-D2 will soar into the skies at 9:18 am from the first launch pad at the SDSC SHAR and attempt to put three satellites into a 450 km circular orbit during its 15 minute flight.

The three satellites are ISRO’s EOS-07, US-based firm Antaris’ Janus-1 and Chennai-based space start up SpaceKidz’s AzaadiSAT-2. The first test flight of SSLV had ended in partial failure on August 9^th 2022, as the rocket failed to inject its satellite payload in their intended orbits. SSLV caters to the launch of up to 500 kg satellites to low earth orbits on ‘launch-on-demand’ basis. It provides low-cost access to space, offers low turn-around time and flexibility in accommodating multiple satellites, and demands minimal launch infrastructure. It is configured with three solid propulsion stages and a velocity terminal module. It is a 34 m tall, 2 m diameter vehicle having a lift-off mass of 120 tonnes.

EOS-07 is a 156.3 kg satellite which has been designed, developed and realized by ISRO. New experiments include mm-Wave Humidity Sounder and Spectrum Monitoring Payload. While, Janus-1, a 10.2 kg satellite, belongs to Antaris, USA. A 8.7 kg satellite, AzaadiSAT-2, is a combined effort of about 750 girl students across India guided by Space Kidz India, Chennai.