The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched its “naughty” rocket on Saturday, nicknamed for its high failure rate, as part of a mission to help improve weather observations from space.
“This vehicle has successfully placed the satellite into the planned geosynchronous transfer orbit,” ISRO celebrated in a message at X.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), nicknamed the “naughty boy” for failing six of its 15 missions, carries the “weather and disaster warning satellite” INSAT-3DS into Indian space. The company said in a statement.
The satellite will be deployed in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) along with other operational satellites INSAT-3D and INSAT-3TR to augment the country's meteorological services.
INSAT-3DS is “designed to enhance meteorological studies and monitoring of land and sea surfaces for weather forecasting and disaster warning,” the Indian Space Agency added.
This latest Indian mission comes within the framework of a series of ambitions set by the Asian country in its ambitious race to increase its presence in space, following the recent successes of its space programme.
The country has set a target of operating its first space station by 2023 and is working on a formula to reduce the cost of the first mission to Venus.
The Asian nation's new ambitions in space follow the successful launch and landing of the unmanned space probe Chandrayaan-3, which put an explorer near the south pole of the Earth's moon, which had never been explored before.
After this milestone, which made India the fourth country to achieve a controlled landing on the lunar surface, a milestone achieved so far only by China, the United States, Japan and the former Soviet Union, the country launched its first mission to explore the Sun. , Aditya-l1 (Sun, in Sanskrit).
