Places · Spaceport
Satish Dhawan Space Centre
On a barrier island in the Bay of Bengal. Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan both left from here, as does every PSLV and GSLV.
- Where
- Sriharikota, India
- Coordinates
- 13.73°N 80.23°E
- Since
- 1979
- On the map
- Show me
- More
- isro.gov.in
The sky from here
The sky over this spot is zone 4 — suburban edge, Bortle 4–5, with a naked-eye limit around magnitude 5.7–6.5. The Milky Way is a faint band overhead and gone lower down. The sky is noticeably grey rather than black.
Against that sky 99 of the 110 Messier objects are straightforward in 10×50 binoculars and 100 in a 130mm, with 21 reachable by eye alone. The nearest sky of Bortle 2 or better lies about 44 km north-east of here.
The Sun drops far enough below the horizon here for full astronomical darkness on every night of the year — which is not true of anywhere much further from the equator.
At its highest the galactic centre stands 47° up, which is the difference between a Milky Way with depth in it and a smear along the horizon. Of the 110 Messier objects, none are circumpolar and every one of them rises at some point in the year.
The sky here is kindest to Virgo A, Phantom Galaxy and Beehive Cluster, each of which passes within a few degrees of overhead — an object at the zenith is being seen through the least air it will ever be seen through, and the difference against the same object low in the south is not subtle.
Read at 13.73°N 80.23°E. Darkness is estimated rather than measured; everything else follows from the latitude and holds along the whole parallel. How accurate this is.
Nearby
Questions
What part of the sky never rises at Satish Dhawan Space Centre?
Everything south of declination −76°. From 13.7°N that is a cap 14° in radius centred on the south celestial pole, which is 1.4% of the whole celestial sphere. It is out of reach permanently rather than seasonally: no time of year and no instrument brings it above the horizon. The matching 1.4% around the north celestial pole is the same geometry inverted, and never sets.
How many hours of true darkness does Satish Dhawan Space Centre get?
10 hours 9 minutes on the best night, around 21 December, falling to 8 hours 25 minutes around 21 June. That counts only proper astronomical night, with the Sun eighteen degrees down; the merely-dark hours either side of it are longer. Every night of the year gets there eventually, which is the quiet advantage of not being any further from the equator than this.
What orbits can be reached from Satish Dhawan Space Centre?
Anything inclined at 13.7° or more, for free. A rocket launched due east from 13.7°N arrives in an orbit inclined at 13.7° — the shallowest the site can reach without spending propellant to turn the plane — and steeper orbits are simply a matter of launching on a different heading. The Space Station's 51.6°, and any polar or sun-synchronous orbit, are all available from here. What the latitude charges for is the other direction: a geostationary orbit sits at 0° inclination, and all 13.7° of the difference has to be bought back with propellant that could have been payload.
How far is Satish Dhawan Space Centre from the other sites on this map?
The nearest is Xichang Satellite Launch Center, about 2,770 km to the north-east. That is also the nearest other spaceport, with the next one 3,330 km beyond it. Measured as the great circle between coordinates, which is the shortest path across the surface and rarely the one you could travel.