SARAL

 2013-009A

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'Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa', a joint ISRO CNES mission with the Altika altimeter. Saral also means 'simple' in Hindi. CNES is overall mission manager. ISRO supplies the spacecraft bus and the launch vehicle and carries out spacecraft commanding.

Gap filler between Envisat and Sentinel-3 using ISRO SSB (IMS-2 Small Satellite Bus). Mass 346 kg. Box + 2 panels size 1.0 x 1.0 x 0.7m, span around 3.0m? Mono RCS with 1N thrusters and 21 kg propellant.

AltiKa replaces Envisat RA2 altimeter and work with Jason-2.  

SARAL is mounted on the DLA-U; NEOSSAT and Sapphire inside. Strand-1 and the NLS-8 satellites are mounted on the second stage forward adapter.

Azmuth 147 in early flight, 178 during PS3 coast.

SARAL
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
2013 Feb 25	1231	Launch by PSLV-CA C20	SHAR
		T+1:53 PS1 sep 52 km
		T+1:53 PS2 burn
		T+2:58 HS sep, 116 km
		T+4:25 PS2 sep 222 km
		T+4:26 PS3 burn 224 km
		T+6:40? PS3 burnout
	1239	T+8:40 PS3 sep 582 km
	1239	T+8:51 PS4 burn 593 km
	1248	T+17:20 PS4 cutoff 789 km
	1248	T+17:58 SARAL sep
	1249	T+18:28 DLA-U sep
	1249	T+18:58 SAPPHIRE sep
	1250	T+19:23 NEOSSat sep
	1251	T+20:12 AAUSAT 3 sep
	1251	T+20:52 BRITE sep
	1252	T+21:12 UniBRITE sep
	1252	T+21:42 STRAND sep
2013 Mar 1			100.45 771 x 788 x 98.6
2013 Mar 15		Op orbit reached	100.54 783 x 785 x 98.5
2013 Dec 5			100.54 783 x 785 x 98.5

Payload:

• AltiKA altimeter, Ka-band, 35.75 GHz. 8 km res (CNES/)

• DORIS Precise orbit determination (CNES/)

• LRA Laser Retroreflector array (CNES/)

• Argos-3 Data Collection System