{The rocket carries the highest number of satellites on a single Indian mission and the third highest in history.}<\/p>\n
India has successfully launched a rocket carrying a record 20 satellites, as its space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market.<\/p>\n
The rocket carries the highest ever number of satellites on a single Indian mission and the third highest in history.<\/p>\n
It blasted off on Wednesday from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota, carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia.<\/p>\n
INFOGRAPHIC: India’s mission to Mars<\/p>\n
Most of the satellites will enter orbit to observe and measure the Earth’s atmosphere, while one of them aims to provide service for amateur radio operators.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known to be highly ambitious about the country’s space research programme, described the launch as “a monumental accomplishment” for the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).<\/p>\n
ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar told the national NDTV news network: “Each of these small objects that you are putting into space will carry out their own activity, which is independent of the other, and each of them will live a wonderful life for a finite period.” .
\n{{Frugal space programme}}<\/p>\n
The business of putting commercial satellites into space for a fee is globally growing as phone, Internet and other companies, as well as countries, seek greater and more high-tech communications.<\/p>\n
In 2008, India launched 10 satellites on one rocket, setting a world record that has since been broken by the United States and then Russia.<\/p>\n
Pallava Bagla, a science editor with the privately run Indian TV channel NDTV, told Al Jazeera that it was significant feat and symbolised why big tech companies were flocking to India.<\/p>\n
“It’s like dropping off, one by one, school children from a bus travelling at high velocity” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s a tricky maneuver because you don’t want the mothership and the ‘babies’ to collide with each other.”<\/p>\n
“India offers launch costs that are fifty percent cheaper than the rest of the world, so if Space X, Arianespace or NASA can do it at $100, India is willing to do it at $50,” he added.<\/p>\n
India is competing with other international players for a greater share of the commercial launch market, and is known for its low-cost space programme.<\/p>\n
In 2013, the ISRO sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars at a cost of just $73m, compared with American space agency NASA’s Maven Mars mission that had a $671m price tag.<\/p>\n
The successful mission was a source of immense pride in India, which beat rival China in becoming the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet.<\/p>\n
In May, the ISRO launched a rocket carrying an experimental spacecraft it hopes will mark an important step towards the country’s first re-usable space shuttle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The rocket carries the highest number of satellites on a single Indian mission and the third highest in history.} India has successfully launched a rocket carrying a record 20 satellites, as its space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market. The rocket carries the highest ever number of satellites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26288"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26288"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}