Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) proudly announced a significant achievement in space exploration with the successful accomplishment of all payload objectives of the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3 (POEM-3).
POEM-3 stands as India’s unique and cost-effective space platform, utilizing the spent PS4 stage of the PSLV-C58 vehicle launched by ISRO’s XPoSat on January 1.
In an official statement, ISRO declared, “ISRO’s innovative space platform, POEM-3, successfully achieves all payload objectives. With the likely re-entry of POEM-3 in the next 75 days, the PSLV-C58 XPoSat mission will be leaving zero debris in space.”
Launched aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), this experiment marked a crucial step forward in understanding the operation of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel cells in the space environment.
“After deploying the satellite into its intended orbit at 650 km, the vehicle was lowered to a 350 km circular orbit to minimize the time of orbit decay after completion of the experiment. It is a three-axis-attitude controlled platform with power generation and telecommand & telemetry capabilities, for supporting Payloads,” detailed the space agency.
“By the 25th day in orbit, POEM-3 completed 400 orbits. Its current orbit measures around 322 km by 352 km. It is predicted that POEM-3 will continue orbiting for approximately 73 more days before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” ISRO added.
The primary objective of this experiment was to gather valuable data that would contribute to the design of systems for future space missions.
“After achieving all objectives, more experiments with POEM-3 are planned for generating data for future missions, including upcoming POEM configurations. With the orbital decay and reentry of POEM-3 in three months, PSLV-C58 XPoSat mission will be leaving zero debris in space,” confirmed ISRO.