FZE, India’s first commercial satellite, was launched on November 30, 2020.
The satellite will carry a powerful 3G-powered radio telescope.
It will be the world’s fastest satellite launch.
The FZE-3 satellite will be launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) at 11:59 p.m.
IST on November 31, 2020 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
The satellite will weigh around 14.4 tonnes and the launch vehicle will be about 1.8 tonnes heavier.
FZE is the first commercial spacecraft to be launched with a 3G satellite constellation.
FZe-3 is a three-stage rocket, and the first spacecraft to use a 5.7 metre (19 foot) diameter sphere to provide the high-resolution imaging and geospatial data needed for future geo-spatial navigation and geophysics missions.FZE is an 8-metre (30 foot) wide, two-meter diameter, 1.1 metre (4 foot) tall and 1.5 metre (3 foot) thick spacecraft with a payload capacity of 1.2 kg (3.6 pounds).
The FZ-3 will provide high-speed imaging of India’s skies for 10 years.
The FZE mission will provide a new frontier in space technology.
India’s space sector is a $5 billion market.
The country is set to surpass China as the world leader in space in 2021.
It is also set to overtake the United States as the second-largest space consumer in 2021, with the United Sates space market expected to grow at a double-digit pace.
India’s first launch of a 5-metres-wide satellite is the FZE satellite.
In the first launch, India successfully launched a 5,600 kg (13,700 lb) satellite into the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) orbit on October 24, 2020 at 12:03 a.m., and the same rocket launched two satellites later on October 25, 2020 and October 26, 2020 respectively.
The satellites were designated FZE2 and FZE3.
The new satellite will provide the best spatial coverage of India in the world, with a total area of 2.6 km2 (0.3 sq mile) in the geosynchronous orbit and a resolution of 0.4 arcseconds (0,964 nautical miles).
The satellite was designed by ISRO to provide high speed imaging of the Indian skies for ten years, and will help in providing high-definition and 3D imagery of India.
This will help the country better understand its geospacial environment.
The launch is the culmination of a project that has been in the works for the last two years.
ISRO has a constellation of satellites that is capable of providing geoscience-related imagery and geosatographic data for the entire country.
The constellation covers almost 10 million square kilometres, covering about 9,000 square kilometres (3,200 square miles) in India.