India launches 10 satellites at once

Stephen Withers
Monday, 28 April 2008 12:13

Science - Space

The Indian Space Research Organisation has successfully put ten satellites into orbit with a single rocket.

The payload of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)  launched from the Sriharikota space station in Andhra Pradesh carried one full-size satellite (India's Cartosat-2A mapping satellite), a smaller remote-sensing satellite, and eight 'nanosatellites' developed by research institutes in  Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.

The mission took a mere 20 minutes from take off to the deployment of the tenth satellite, and was the thirteenth for the 230-ton PSLV launcher.

The launch was shown live by India's Doordarshan public broadcaster.