5 min
On 15th of February this year, ISRO had launched a record 104 satellites on a single rocket from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh. Witnessing the success of this mega launch event, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats expressed shock over India’s triumphant feat. Dan coats comments, “It was shocking for me to read the other day about India’s successful stint in depositing more than 100 satellites in space, on a single rocket.” Dan also mentioned States’ plan to catch up soon on this.
This launch makes India the first country to successfully carry so many satellite in one single mission. With this event, India overtook Russia’s previous record of launching 37 satellites in one go, back in 2014. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C37 has been considered the star of this incredible step for India’s space programme. “These satellites might be different in size with different functions and so forth but one rocket can send up, I think it was 104 platforms,” remarks Dan.
Eighteen minutes is all it took to propel all the 104 satellites into outer space. Each of these satellites traversed at a speed of over 27,000 km per hour. India became the fourth country in September 2014 to have successfully guided a spacecraft into orbit around Mars. the US, the former Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency.
Three satellites were Indian-owned, 96 were from US companies, and the remaining belonged to companies based in Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates out of the total array. Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based Earth-imaging company happened to own most of these satellites.
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