India launches first commercial satellite for Italy
23/04/2007 18:13 NEW DELHI, April 23 (RIA Novosti) - India has launched its first rocket with a third-party payload on a commercial basis, IANS news agency reported Monday.
The Indian PSLV-C8 launch vehicle put the Italian astronomic satellite AGILE and an Indian advanced avionics module into a 550-kilometer (340-mile) circular orbit at a cost of $16.3 million, several million below the international benchmark.
India has joined France, Russia, the U.S., China and Japan on the commercial launch market. India's advantages are the proximity of its space center to the equator, providing for higher payload, and a relatively well-proven launch vehicle, in operation since 1994, and nine consecutive successful flights so far.
PSLV has launched eight Indian remote sensing satellites, a radio satellite, HAMSAT, a recoverable space capsule SRE-1, six small satellites for foreign customers, and India's meteorological satellite, Kalpana-1.
PSLV is also to be used to launch India's first spacecraft mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, next year.
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