India’s Space Agency Launches 20 Satellites In Single Flight

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has launched 20 satellites into the Earth's orbit in a single mission, as per reports. The payload was injected into orbit with the country's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C34). The launched satellites included 17 from Indonesia, Germany, Canada and US in total, apart from India's own earth observation satellite known as the Cartosat-2 Series, among others.

#WATCH: ISRO successfully launches record 20 satellites from Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh)https://t.co/l3UlbcoIu5

— ANI (@ANI_news) June 22, 2016

The images received from the Cartosat satellite will be helpful for cartographic, water distribution, coastal land use, rural, urban and other applications. The Indian satellites also included the 1.5 kilogram Sathyabamasat which will be used for collecting information on greenhouse gases, and the 1 kilogram Swayam satellite which will offer precise messaging services to the HAM radio community.

The mission reportedly also carried Germany's MVV and BIROS, Indonesia's LAPAN A3, Canada's M3MSAT and the SKYSAT GEN 2-1 of US, among others. The 110-kg SKYSAT GEN2-1 satellites belongs to Google company Terra Bella, and the earth imaging satellite will be used for taking high definition video and sub meter resolution imagery.

ISRO's 26.5 minute mission was launched at 9.26 a.m. IST from Sriharikota. The process saw 20 satellites with the combined weight of 1,288 kilograms being lifted into space by the 320 ton PSLV-C34. Subsequently, the satellites were placed into a polar sun synchronous orbit consecutively, making it the biggest single mission for the country and third such launch in the world, after Russia's 33 satellites single launch in 2014 and NASA's 29 satellites single launch in 2013. This is also the first time that the Indian space agency released more than 10 satellites with one rocket launch. Previously, the country had used the PSLV rocket to launch 10 satellites in 2008.

Incidentally, India has seen the launch of many successful missions recently, and it became the first nation to reach the orbit of Mars on a maiden mission in 2014, a probe that cost just about $74 million. The successful launch of 20 satellites in a single mission adds to ISRO's image as a low lost service provider for small satellite launches.