Be Proud to be an Indian PSLV-C20 launches 7 satellites

Sriharikota (AP), Feb 25 (PTI):  Indo-French oceanographic
study satellite 'SARAL' and six foreign mini and micro
spacecrafts were succesfully launched today by ISRO's PSLV-C20

rocket from this spaceport.  Indian Space Research Organisation's(ISRO) workhorse

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) lifted off from the first

launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at around 6 pm at the

end of the 59-hour countdown and placed in the orbit the

satellites about 22 minutes later. President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch from the mission control centre here, about 110 km from Chennai. The lift-off was rescheduled to 6.01 pm, a five-minute delay, to avoid probability of collision with space debris, a

normal precautionary step in a launch mission, ISRO sources

said. The 410-kg SARAL with payloads -- Argos and Altika --

from French space agency CNES is meant for study of ocean

parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean

state conditions. Besides SARAL, two micro-satellites UniBRITE and BRITE

from Austria, AAUSAT3 from Denmark and STRaND from United

Kingdom as also one micro-satellite (NEOSSat) and one

mini-satellite (SAPPHIRE) from Canada were launched by PSLV,

which yet again proved its versatality recording its 22nd

succesful flight in a row in its 23 missions of which the

first one had failed. SARAL was injected first into the space about 18 minutes

after the lift-off followed by other satellites in the space

of about four minutes.