#Update Been under the weather the last couple of days. Another weekend, another key launch. A 3-in-1 mission for @ISRO on Nov 26: #PSLVC54 to launch 7 commercial, one diplomatic & 1 main national satellites.  #Thread to put things in one place, I may not be around tomorrow: 1/n

Last Friday, a private single-stage rocket became the first non-Isro launch vehicle to ever enter the space agency’s spaceport in Sriharikota, which already boasts of 620 launch missions, including sounding rockets (see image/doesn’t include #VikramS). 2/n

This Saturday, the main payload is a satellite for national objectives designed and developed for ocean studies, the Oceansat-3 or Earth observation Satellite-06 (EOS-06). This is part of a series of satellites from Isro dedicated to oceanography and atmospheric studies. 3/n

Among the seven commercial satellites, which will be launched through Space PSU NewSpace India Limited — @NSIL, is India’s privately built Earth observation satellite — startup @Pixxel #Anand. 4/n

#Anand is a hyperspectral microsatellite which weighs less than 15kg and has a total of 150+ wavelengths that will enable it to see Earth in a lot more detail than today’s non-hyperspectral satellites. 5/n

“Imagery from Anand can be used to detect pest infestation, map forest fires, identify soil stress & oil slicks... Our hyperspectral satellites are unique in their ability to provide hundreds of bands of information with global coverage at a very high frequency… 6/n

…making them ideal for disaster relief, agricultural monitoring, energy monitoring and urban planning applications,” Pixxel said. 7/n

Aside from Anand, @NSIL is facilitating the launch of two private communication satellites, Thybolt 1 & 2, (see image) for another Indian startup @Dhruva Space, and four other satellites (Astrocast) for US firm Spaceflight. 8/n

“All of them are through commercial contracts and together the seven satellites through NSIL will weigh around 50 kg. The four satellites for Spaceflight are being built by Swiss firm Astrocast,” an official said. 9/n

The 9th satellite on the mission is BhutanSat, a satellite for Bhutan as part of India’s diplomacy. Isro had earlier described it as a gift to Bhutan as part of the space diplomacy initiatives put in place by New Delhi. n/n PS: For Pixxel's future plans see pic below