ISRO today begins the launch countdown for India’s largest LVM3 rocket carrying 36 satellites

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on Saturday began the countdown to the launch of India’s largest LVM3 rocket, which carries 36 satellites. The rocket is scheduled to take off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on Sunday morning at 9:00 AM.

India’s heavy launch vehicle Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM-III) will launch 36 satellites of Britain’s Network Access Associated Ltd (OneWeb) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on Sunday.

During the countdown, which began at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, the rocket and satellite systems were checked and the rocket was refueled, according to news agency IANS.

LVM-III is 43.5 meters high and weighs 643 tons. It will blast off at 9:00 a.m. from a second launch pad at the Sriharikota rocket port in Andhra Pradesh, carrying OneWeb’s last 36 Gen1 satellites weighing in, according to an IANS report.

It is a three-stage rocket, with the first stage fired by liquid fuel, two solid-fuel engines, the second by liquid fuel, and the third by a cryogenic engine.

The upcoming rocket mission code named LVM3-M3/OneWeb India-2 Mission by ISRO.

A little more than 19 minutes after the rocket explodes, the satellite separation process begins. The separation of the 36 satellites is done in stages.

OneWeb is backed by Indian telecommunications company Bharti Group, and with the successful launch of the satellites on March 26, the company will complete the global footprint of its Gen 1 constellation. It now has 582 satellites in orbit. On March 26, the total is expected to rise to 618.

ISRO’s commercial arm, NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL), has signed an agreement with OneWeb to launch 72 satellites in two phases at a launch fee of over Rs 1,000 crore, OneWeb chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said last October.

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