India launches 4 Satellites, awaits Re-entry

Making the first space launch of the year, India launched the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to put a cache of four satellites into orbit on Wednesday. One of these satellites is designed to test re-entry vehicle technology that could be used in an upcoming manned space mission.

The four-stage rocket arrived in the orbit 16 minutes after its launch from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launchpad in Sriharikota on the southeast coast. Another four minutes were taken to position the satellites.

"It is a great day for the country. We have done it and done it correctly. The mission is a success," said G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization.

The PSLV-C7 rocket carried two small Indian satellites and two foreign-built satellites -- the Lapan-Tubsat from Indonesia and the Argentine-built Pehuensat-1. The Indonesian satellite was the country’s first into space, officials said.

One of the Indian satellites, the 550-kg (1,200 lb) Space Capsule Recovery Equipment (SRE-1), would check ISRO's ability to recover an orbiting space capsule. After orbiting for 13 to 30 days the capsule will enter back into the atmosphere and descend into the Bay of Bengal off the east coast of India and will be recovered. It will test technology for "navigation, guidance and control during the re-entry phase."

Experiments regarding the conditions of microgravity will also be carried out.

No manned mission has yet been announced by the country but an unmanned moon mission is scheduled to take place in 2008. It aims to put an astronaut into space by 2014.

This was India’s first space launch since July when the launch of a communications satellite failed after the rocket carrying it swerved off course in the separation stage and exploded. The country’s first satellite in the INSAT series was put into orbit in 1982 and since then it has made 11 successful rocket launches.