- SRIHARIKOTA, India (Reuters)
- India tested its most ambitious satellite launch rocket successfully
on Thursday, injecting a 1.8 ton experimental payload into an orbit tuned
to the earth's movement, space officials said.
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- Witnesses said the launch, which is a step forward in
India's attempts to be a player in the lucrative business of launching
satellites, went off smoothly at the southern spaceport of Sriharikota,
some 60 miles north of the city of Madras.
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- The blast-off at 4:58 p.m. (7:28 a.m. EDT) was the second
successful test of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV-D2,
and came two years after the first launch that took place days after an
attempt that was aborted due to a technical glitch. The first rocket, GSLV-D1,
had placed a 1.5 ton satellite in space from the launch port located on
the Bay of Bengal coast.
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- The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said the
GSAT-2 communications satellite was placed in its planned transfer orbit,
from where it would be pushed deeper into space to a final orbit aligned
to match a point on the earth.
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- Heavy geo-synchronous satellites, resembling watchtowers
in space, are used for communications, broadcasting and weather forecasts.
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- ISRO officials said last week that there is a market
for the launch of five to six 2.0-tonsatellites every year across the world,
and India could offer the service at attractive prices.
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- ISRO says it is in exploratory talks for marketing tie-ups
with companies like Lockheed Martin Corp .
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- India can also save money in its satellite program with
its own launch services. It has so far used Europe's Arianespace to launch
its heavy satellites.
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