PSLV Full Form | Full Form of PSLV

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle

PSLV stands for Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
It's an expandable launch vehicle of India which is developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO ).
It's the third generation launch vehicle of India and also the primary satellite launch vehicle of India which is provided with liquid stages.
PSLV was developed to enable India launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits.
It also can be used to launch small size satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO).
India used PSLV on 15 February 2017 to launch 104 satellites in polar orbit around the Earth. From 1994 to 2017, India has launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 foreign satellites through PSLV.
Furthermore, it's also used to launch India’s two spacecrafts, i.e. Chandrayan-1 in 2008 and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013. Later, these spacecrafts travelled to Moon and Mars respectively.

Vehicle Specifications

PSLV is additionally called "the Workhorse of ISRO". It earned this title after consistently launching various satellites to Low Earth Orbits, i.e. IRS series of satellites. It can carry up to 1,750 kg of load to Sun-Synchronous Polar Orbits of 600 km altitude. It's given 6 solid rocket strap-on motors to boost up the thrust in its PSLV-G and PSLV-XL variants within the first stage.
It is a four-staged launch vehicle that uses solid and liquid system alternately, i.e. first and third stages use solid rocket motors while the second and fourth stages use liquid rocket engines.

The first stage uses the S139 solid rocket motor augmented by 6 solid strap-on boosters.
The most thrust generated during this stage is 4800 kn.

An Earth storable liquid rocket is used for the second stage of PSLV. It's called Vikas engine and it's developed by the Liquid Propulsion system Centre.
The most thrust generated in this stage is 799 kN.

During this stage of PSLV, a solid rocket motorprovides the specified thrust after the atmospheric phase of the launch.
The most thrust generated in this stage is 240 kn.

It's the uppermost stage of PSLV. It comprises two Earth storable liquid engines.
The maximum thrust generated in this stage is 7.6 X 2 kN.