ISRO chairman hails ‘historic’ LVM3 success; BlueBird Block-2 becomes India’s heaviest launch:

ISRO Chairman V Narayan termed the communication satellite BlueBird Block-2 the heaviest satellite ever lifted from the soil of the country after it successfully lifted from Indian soil using indigenous launchers for the first time.

Chairman Narayan stated the satellite was placed in its designated orbit. This is a major milestone for India in terms of its commercial space economy.

In a statement after the successfully executed deployment, Chairman Narayan stated:

“The launch vehicle is successful and is precisely in orbit of the BlueBird Block-2 communication satellite for the first time in history. This is the first time of termed commercial launch for an American customer, AST SpaceMobile, after the 104 launch of Sriharikota and is the 9th on a row for the LVM3 that has achieved 100 % reliability.”

In terms of a rapid turnaround time from ISRO, he stated:

“This is a back to back mission for the LVM3 in 52 days. As for an all-time record, India has launched the heaviest satellite ever in its 3rd fully commercial mission awarded to the LVM3. This vehicle has demonstrated its excellence.”

Mission Overview

The mission departed from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) located in Sriharikota at 8:55 AM IST. The BlueBird Block-2 is an innovative spacecraft that aims to provide unprecedented high-speed broadband in everyone’s smartphones (4G and 5G). It will provide broadband from space and will not require any hardware modifications to the smartphones.

Technical Specifications of the LVM3:

The LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle that is classified as a heavy-lift. It is made of:

S200 solid strap-on motors (of which two are included)

An (L110) Liquid Core

A C25 (Cryogenic upper stage)

Although this vehicle typically can carry 4,200 kg to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) this mission did showcase the vehicle’s high capability in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by carrying an all-time record BlueBird payload.

Enhancing Global Connectivity

It is this mission of the LVM3 that is the most recent of many high-profile missions including: Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, and two missions for OneWeb that are considered to be of significant importance. The LVM3-M5/CMS-03 mission, on the 2nd of this November, is the most recent mission we conducted prior to this.

AST SpaceMobile is a company working on the very first and only space-based broadband network. The BlueBird constellation aims to provide uninterrupted sync for video calls and web browsing to billions of mobile subscribers, even in remote areas of the world (the most remote areas).

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