Wednesday, September 23, 2009 BANGALORE: India successfully launched seven satellites including six from foreign countries on Wednesday, officials said, underlining the country's ambitions in the space business. About a month after its first moon mission was aborted, the country's space agency announced that the seven satellites had been put into orbit about 720 kilometres (447 miles) above the earth. India will use one of the satellites, Oceansat-2, for monitoring ocean patterns, backing up the first Oceansat, which was launched in 1999. Of the six foreign satellites, there are four from Germany and one each from Switzerland and Turkey. "It was a perfect launch," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said from the spaceport Sriharikota, about 80 kilometres north-east of Chennai. The cost of the launch was two billion rupees (40 million dollars), including 1.3 billion rupees for the satellite and 700 million rupees for the rocket, Satish said. India began its space programme in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to cut dependence on overseas agencies. It first staked its claim for a share of the global commercial launch market by sending an Italian satellite into orbit in 2007. India launched an unmanned satellite and put a probe on the moon's surface to great fanfare and national pride late last year, but controllers lost contact with the space vehicle last month and aborted the mission.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 BANGALORE: India successfully launched seven satellites including six from foreign countries on Wednesday, officials said, underlining the country's ambitions in the space business. About a month after its first moon mission was aborted, the country's space agency announced that the seven satellites had been put into orbit about 720 kilometres (447 miles) above the earth. India will use one of the satellites, Oceansat-2, for monitoring ocean patterns, backing up the first Oceansat, which was launched in 1999. Of the six foreign satellites, there are four from Germany and one each from Switzerland and Turkey. "It was a perfect launch," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said from the spaceport Sriharikota, about 80 kilometres north-east of Chennai. The cost of the launch was two billion rupees (40 million dollars), including 1.3 billion rupees for the satellite and 700 million rupees for the rocket, Satish said. India began its space programme in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to cut dependence on overseas agencies. It first staked its claim for a share of the global commercial launch market by sending an Italian satellite into orbit in 2007. India launched an unmanned satellite and put a probe on the moon's surface to great fanfare and national pride late last year, but controllers lost contact with the space vehicle last month and aborted the mission.
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