Article Posted on : - Jan 04, 2011

SINGAPORE (PTI): The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is expected to launch Singapore’s first satellite in orbit next month after a long delay and a four-fold cost overrun.

The launch of the satellite, dubbed X-Sat, has been delayed since 2007.

Experts estimated that the delay has raised the cost of the satellite four-fold to more than 40 million Singaporean dollars from earlier estimates of 10 million, according to a report in The Straits Times.

The satellite was earlier slated to be launched in December 2010. No reasons were given for the delay in the launch of X-Sat and it was not linked to the failure of ISRO’s Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) on Christmas Day.

The X-Sat would ride on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which has made 17 launches since its maiden flight in 1993, and has successfully put a total of 38 satellites into orbit out of 40.

The X-Sat, a refrigerator-sized micro-satellite, would be in orbit for three years at a height of 800 km.

It would take photographs to measures soil erosion and environmental changes on Earth, then relay them to a ground station at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

“The experimental micro-satellite is in the final phase of preparation leading to its assembly on the PSLV rocket. Stringent checks would be carried out before the launch,” the paper quoted a NTU spokesman as saying.

But ISRO has not set a launch date, the spokesman added.
ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan had said that the PSLV was in the assembling stage.

“We will be doing the flight testing stage later in January, and are expecting it to be launched in the first week of February,” he was quoted as saying in recent media reports.

The 100-kg X-Sat would be one of the three riding on the PSLV rocket, said Radhakrishnan.

The X-Sat would make Singapore one of the first Southeast Asian countries to have locally-built satellite in space. The satellite is built by NTU, one of Singapore's top universities and research and development centres.