Demonstrating the country's capability to launch multiple payloads into precise slots, an Indian polar rocket today successfully put into orbit a record 10 satellites — two Indian and eight foreign — in one go.Following a perfect launch at 0923 hours from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, the PSLV-C9 surged into space, injecting all ten satellites into the intended orbit within minutes of each other. The payloads, which together weighed 824 kg, were the heaviest carried so far by the 230-tonne rocket.A 690-kg Indian Remote Sensing Satellite Cartosat-2A was the first satellite to be successfully put into into orbit by ISRO’s “reliable and versatile” workhorse.A 83-kg Indian mini-satellite and a cluster of eight nano-satellites, each weighing between 3 kg and 16 kg, built by research institutions from Europe, Canada and Japan, were the other payloads that were offloaded.“It is really a memorable moment. The mission was perfect and for the first time, ten satellites were launched within one mission. We have set a record. Only Russia had so far tried to launch 13 satellites in a single launch and I am not sure whether that was successful,” ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told a news conference.The launch comes ahead of India’s plans to launch its first moon mission “Chandrayaan-I” expected later this year.The PSLV-C9, in its total flight duration of 19 minutes and 11 seconds, performed extremely well, said Nair. "It's much better than a textbook performance. Every system functioned as per the parameters."The CARTOSAT-2A and the IMS-1, followed by the nano satellites, were released in quick succession. Nair said there was some anxious moments due to some unusual weather conditions over the Bay of Bengal off the Andaman coast.“Only at 11 pm yesterday, we decided to go ahead with the launch,” Nair said, adding he was happy that all the mission objectives were achieved with precision and all systems functioned very well. “The ISRO team has done it again. It is the PSLV’s 12th successful mission in a row. There was not even a slightest deviation from the project trajectory path,” he said.“We have received information from international customers that they have received signals from the satellites at their ground stations. The mission stations at Thiruvananthapuram and Mauritius have also received information that the satellites are in good health. We hope that if everything goes right within the next two days, we would be able to switch on the imaging system,” Nair said.On the Chandrayaan Mission, he said a modest satellite, weighing about 500 kg, would be launched into the lunar orbit to collect topographical data of the moon. “We hope by the third quarter of this year, we should be able to take out a satellite to the moon.”
