India launches record number of satellites into space

by Rich Bowden - Apr 29 2008, 00:48

India has broken the world record for number of satellites launched in one go when a rocket blasted off from the Sriharikota space station in southern India carrying ten satellites.

The Indian space agency has claimed a world record in launching ten satellites into space in one liftoff. Photo: Cartosat-2a undergoing prelaunch tests. Credit: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) PSLV-C9 rocket took off in clear weather carrying the Indian remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A, the 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) and eight nanosatellites for international customers, said an ISRO statement."We could not detect even the slightest deviation from the designated trajectory, so that shows the mission was perfect, and spacecrafts were delivered on the dot," head of the space agency, G. Madhavan Nair told reporters. "The mission was perfect, Team ISRO has done it again," he said.Nair said it was an important achievement in the space agency's forty-five year history because, "...it is the first time that we have launched 10 satellites in a single mission."Indian news said the ten satellites launched broke the previous record of eight taken into space by a Russian rocket.The remote sensing CARTOSAT satellite will be used to beam back to India images from space with a high-resolution camera and will be used to map infrastructure and natural resources. It will assist urban and rural development planners in India.It will be monitored from Spacecraft Control Centre at Bangalore with the assistance of other national and international stations.