India launched a rocket carrying five foreign satellites on Monday as Premier Narendra Modi urged scientists in that country to develop their own satellite for South Asian nations.
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) took off at 9.52 a.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota, an island off south-eastern India.
The satellites, including from Germany and France, were successfully placed in their prescribed orbits of 660 km above the earth, Modi said.
He added that the main satellite on the rocket is the 714-kg French earth-observation satellite SPOT-7.
Others are the 14-kg AISAT of Germany, NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) and NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) from Canada, each weighing 15kgs, and the 7-kg VELOX-1 of Singapore.
Today’s satellites are all from developed nations; France, Canada, Germany and Singapore.
“Truly, this is a global endorsement of India’s space capabilities.’’
The Indian prime minister added that “today, I ask our space community to take up the challenge of developing a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) satellite that we can dedicate to our neighbours as gift.’’
This was the first space mission under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party government, which came into power in May.
India emerged as a significant player in the multi-billion-dollar space launch market.
Monday’s launch takes to 40 the number of foreign satellites India has put into orbit using its workhorse PSLV rocket since 1999, according to IANS news agency.
In February, the country launched a satellite that was jointly built with France, carrying six foreign satellites.
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