VividX2: The Countdown Begins

By Adrian Norris, General Manager and member of the Earth-i Launch Team from Sriharikota, India.
The countdown has started, and in less than 24 hours Carbonite 2, or ‘VividX2’ as Earth-i will designate it as the prototype of our future Constellation, will be launched from ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organisation) Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the Indian coast north of Chennai.
It has been secured in the nose cone of PSLV rocket C40, which is carrying 31 satellite ‘passengers’. Thirty of these will be released at 505km altitude, before the rocket engines fire again and bring the last satellite down to a lower orbit of 359km.
Click here to view the ISRO brochure for the PSLV C40 mission.
Earth-i’s team arrived in India yesterday, and we will be in mission control for tomorrow’s launch. We have been running through our own pre-launch checklist.
More to follow post-launch… and a fantastic way to kick off the next stage in the development of Earth-i’s constellation.