ISRO on Monday ushered in 2024 with the successful launch of its first X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite that would offer insights into black holes in the space, making the country only the second to conduct experiment into such celestial objects. Among the payloads that piggybacked the space agency’s ever reliable Polar Satellite LaunchVehicle (PSLV) was one made by women, prompting ISRO to call it an inspiration for the country. The PSLV-C58 rocket, in its 60th mission, carried the primary payload XPoSat and deployed it in an intended 650 km low earth orbit.

 

Later, scientists performed the orbit lowering maneuver by reducing the altitude to 350 km for conducting the POEM experiment. Speaking at the Mission Control Centre, ISRO Chairman S Somanath said “happy new year to all of you.” “So on 1 January 2024, yet another successful mission of PSLV has been accomplished. PSLV-C58 has placed the primary satellite XPoSat in the desired orbit.” The main Xray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat)is intended to investigate the polarisation of intense X-ray sources in space. It is the first dedicated scientific satellite from ISRO stable tocarry out such research. US’ The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had conducted a similar study - - the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer mission- in December 2021 on the remnants of supernova explosions, the particle streams emitted by black holes and other cosmic events.

 

“Let me also announce the orbit that has been accomplished which is available through various routes--it shows excellent orbitandthedeviationsfrom the targeted orbit is hardly 3 km in circular orbit of 650km and inclination is 001 degree which is one of the very excellent orbital conditions,” Somanath said. “And yet another announcement is that the solarpanelofthesatellitehas beendeployed successfully,” headded.While space-based X-ray astronomy has been established in India focusing on imaging, and time domain studies, Monday’s mission marks a major value-addition to the scientific fraternity, ISRO said. The mission objective includes measuring polarisation of X-rays in the energy band 8-30 keV emanating from about 50 potential cosmicsources,tocarryoutlong term spectral and temporal studies of cosmic x-ray sources.