,
India has successfully launched into space a rocket carrying a capsule recovery experiment to prepare for future manned missions, an official said.
“It was a textbook mission,” Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation told reporters.
The 44 metre (145 feet) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, launched from Sriharikota in southern Andhra Pradesh state, is carrying four payloads, including India's locally built 680 kilogram (1,496 pounds) remote sensing satellite named CARTOSAT-2.
Remote sensing satellites are used to gather climate and geographical data.
The other payloads include an Indonesian earth observation satellite and a satellite from Argentina.
| Click to Enlarge |
Indian space officials have said they hope to send an unmanned probe to the moon and the space agency needs to test its re-entry and recovery technology.
The space agency also said last month that it planned to send an unmanned mission to Mars by 2013 to look for evidence of life.
In July last year, a deep space rocket carrying India's heaviest satellite disintegrated in smoke and flames seconds after lift-off — dealing a blow to the country's ambitious space programme.
“Extra care was taken (this time) to re-examine all the system and sub-systems,” said George Koshy, vehicle director of the Indian space agency.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has a budget of 36 billion rupees (850 million dollars) allotted by the government and also receives payment for launching satellites from other nations.
