Countdown begins for ISRO's launch of it largest LVM3 rocket

The countdown for the second commercial launch of India's largest rocket LVM3 began at 8:30am on Saturday, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, an official at Indian Space Research Organisation told WION.

During the 24-and-a-half-hour countdown, the final health checks of the rocket and satellite systems and fuel filling into the liquid and cryogenic stages of the rocket will be carried out.

Dubbed as 'LVM3-M3/OneWeb India-2 Mission', this will be the LVM3 rocket's sixth mission overall and its second mission to Low Earth orbit (between 400-2000kmabove earth).

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Notably, this is also the shortest duration in which ISRO is carrying out two missions of the LVM3 rocket — on October 23, 2022 and March 26, 2022.

Such quick execution is being carried out in order to meet the timelines of the customer OneWeb, whose satellites are being launched.

OneWeb has been utilising the launch services of SpaceX, Arianespace and ISRO to place all its first generation constellation satellites in orbit. So far, OneWeb satellites have flown 17 times.ISRO will be carrying the 18^thset on Sunday.

"We are one launch away from achieving global coverage. This last launch with ISRO/NSIL will mark over 600 satellites in space, which is the number needed to go commercially live," a OneWeb spokerperson told WION.

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The firm's services arealready live for customers 24x7 in 50 degrees north latitude — Alaska, Canada, Greenland, UK and Northern Europe. By the end of this year, we plan to initiate services across the Globe, it was added.

This is a dedicated commercial mission being carried out through ISRO's commercial armNSIL (NewSpace India Limited).

The rocket will carry36 OneWeb Gen-1 satellites with a total mass of 5,805 kg, into a 450 km circular Low Earth Orbit with an inclination of 87.4° degrees.

OneWeb is a UK-based firm being backed by India's Bharti Group. OneWeb aims to offer high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity from space via their constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit.

LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle with two S200 solid motors as first stage, L110 twin liquid engines as second stage and a final C25 cryogenic upper stage. This 43.5 m tall vehicle has a lift-off mass of 643tons.

ISRO said that the vehicle'scryogenic stage is uniquely designed to orient and re-orient in orthogonal direction to meet the customer requirements of injecting satellites precisely and with a gap to avoid collision.

Ejecting 36 satellites is a complex manoeuvre that ISRO carried out during the earlier OneWeb launch in October 2022 as well.

OneWeb had signed a pact with NSIL and ISRO for placing a total of 72 satellites in orbit (in two batches of 36).

This deal has raked in more than Rs 1000 crore (Rs 10 billion) revenue for the Indian Government-run space agency.

It also provides an opportunity for ISRO to demonstrate the capability and reliability of their largest rocket for offering commercial launch services. Until October 2022, ISRO's LVM3 or GSLV Mk3 rocket was being used only for fulfilling India's national missions such as Chandrayaan-2 and launching heavy satellites.

Notably, the LVM3 has performed successful launches in all its missions to date.

"Subject to all regulatory approvals being in place, we are confident of the commencement of our services later this year for India and have announced distribution agreements with Hughes to provide services" the OneWeb spokesperson told WION, when queriedabout service roll out in India.

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