Indian Space Program - Part 3

The main objective of launching satellites of the Rohini series by India was to test the country's first satellite launch vehicle SLV-3 and launch 4 satellites of 30 to 40 kilograms of the series, by launching this vehicle to check the actual capacity of its rockets because these vehicles were being seen as the cornerstone of the construction of future rockets of the country.

Although only two of the four planets that were launched under this series succeeded, but this proved to be an interim halt for the development of small launch vehicles of the country. After this, the Indian space program entered a new era of development where the journey of development of Satellite launch vehicles and Polar satellite launch vehicles began.

Launch of Rohini: First Experimental flight

The first experimental flight of SLV-3 with "Rohini" satellite took place on Sriharikota launch site on August 10, 1969, but it could not be successful due to the failure of control system of the second segment of the vehicle, it got destroyed and fell into the Bay of Bengal immediately after the launch, the Rohini satellite placed on it was also destroyed.

Successful launch of Rohini RS-1: Second Experimental Flight

On July 18, 1980, the second flight of the SLV-3 took place at 8:04 am from Sriharikota launch site and it was successful as it made some basic amendments, along with removing the responsive shortcomings for the failure of the first experimental flight. With the successful flight of this vehicle, the satellite RS-1 of Rohini series was successfully launched.

It is known that despite successful launch, the RS-1 could not be installed in its fixed class and its minimum distance from Earth was 276 kilometers instead of 308 kilometers and the maximum distance was 472 kilometers instead of 910 kilometers. Because of this, its period had been changed to 1 year instead of pre-determined 7 days and it remained efficient in its class till 23 July 1981. 

It is of course that the historic success of its successful launch has given the Indian space program a new direction. India became the sixth country in the world with indigenous technology and developed launch vehicle, in which Soviet Union, United States, France, Japan and China are already included.

Launch of Rohini RS-D1: Third Experimental Flight

On May 31, 1981, the third flight of satellite launch vehicle SLV-3 at Sriharikota satellite launch site, which was its first developmental flight, proved to be unsuccessful in establishing RS-D1, the third satellite of the Rohini series in the fixed class. Although this vehicle successfully launched Rohini RS-D1, it could not be delivered to the fixed class.

The result was that the planet was destroyed in only one week despite the designated age limit of 300 days.

Successful Launch of Rohini RS-D2: Fourth Experimental Flight

About two years after the unfortunate failure of Rohini RS-D1, on April 17, 1983, SLV-3 rocket was successfully launched with the fourth of the Rohini series and country's eighth satellite Rohini RS-D2. This 41.5 kilograms satellite was installed in its fixed class and this success proved SLV-3 to be an authentic launch vehicle.

The most important thing about this satellite was that it included a solid-state camera of two bands called "Smart Sensor" for the purpose of photographing various parts of the earth during the orbiting by exploring the conditions of crops, water, fallow land, cloud, ice etc. which successfully performed the task.

Will be Continued>>

Further read-

• Indian Space Program-Part 2
• Indian Space Program-Part-2
• Indian Defence Technology-Part-1
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