Canadian Satellites Finally Set For Launch on Indian Rocket

It would appear that several Canadian satellites are finally going to get their launch after years of delays by the Indian Space Research Organization.

India is set to launch the India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C21 rocket this coming Sunday, September 9th with the French Astrium Spot 6 remote sensing satellite as its primary payload with Canada’s launch scheduled after it.

SpaceRef has learned that the PSLV-C20 launch which includes Canada’s NEOSSat, Sapphire & CanX-3a and CanX-3b satellites is now set for the 1st week of December. Should the launch go ahead in early December it would be four years behind schedule.

NEOSSat will be the first space telescope dedicated to the search for near-Earth asteroids. NEOSSat is the result of a university-industry collaboration and will spend half the time looking for these small interplanetary objects that could potentially impact the Earth and cause great damage. NEOSSat will spend the other half of its time searching for satellites and space debris in orbit around the Earth in a research project sponsored by a DND agency, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).

Sapphire is the Department of National Defence (DND) first dedicated military satellite and will upgrade Canada’s space surveillance capabilities.

Also launching on the PSLV-C20 rocket are the Canadian built CanX-3b (aka TUGSAT-1) and CanX-3a (aka UniBRITE) nanosatellites. Both of these nanosatellites we’re built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Space Flight Laboratory.