India's largest rocket LVM3 to perform second commercial mission on March 26

The Indian space agency has announced that its largest rocket LVM3 will be launched at 9am on March 26 from the second launchpad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. This will be the rocket's sixth mission overall and its second commercial mission. Notably, this is also the shortest duration in which ISRO is carrying out two missions of the LVM3 rocket - on October 23rd, 2022 and March 26, 2022. Such quick execution is being carried out in order to meet the timelines of the customer whose satellites are being launched.

Tweeting the launch time and date, ISRO also shared pictures of the LVM3 being rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the second launchpad and those of the vehicle standing at the launchpad. OneWeb has been utilising the launch services of SpaceX, Arianespace and ISRO to place all its 1st generation constellation satellites in orbit OneWeb satellites have flown 17 times to date, and ISRO will be carrying the 18th set.

"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 spokesperson told WION. The firm's services are already 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 arm NSIL (NewSpace India Limited). The rocket will carry 36 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°. OneWeb is a UK-based firm backed by India's Bharti Group. OneWeb aims to offer high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity from space via its constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit.

LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle with two S200 solid motors as the first stage, L110 twin liquid engines as the second stage and a final C25 cryogenic upper stage. This 43.5 m tall vehicle has a lift-off mass of 643 tonnes. ISRO said that the vehicle's cryogenic 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 a 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 batches of 36). This deal has raked in more than Rs.1000cr 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. The March 26th launch of LVM3 will be the rocket's sixth mission.

"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 queried about service would be rolled out in India.

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