The Indian Space Research Organisation launched its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C36 Resource Sat-2A at 10.25 am on Wednesday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Resource Sat-2A is a remote sensing satellite developed by the space agency. The 1,235 kg Resource Sat-2A was placed on the 817-km polar sun synchronous orbit 18 minutes after it took off.

The Resource Sat-2A will carry similar payloads as that carried by its predecessors Resourcesat-1 and Resourcesat-2, which were launched in 2003 and 2011, respectively. The mission life of the satellite is five years, reported PTI. The satellite was designed to continue remote sensing data services provided by it two predecessors.

Isro Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said, “Today we had a successful launch of Resourcesat-2A to provide three tier imaging data. The satellites solar panels were deployed. The launch was perfect.”

The satellite is equipped three types of cameras – a high resolution linear imaging self scanner camera, a medium resolution LISS-3 camera and an advanced wide field sensor camera. It also has two recorders with a memory capacity of 200 Gigabyte.

It was also the 38th flight of PSLV C36. Between 1994 and 2016, the PSLV has launched 121 satellites – 79 foreign and 42 Indian – in various orbits.