New Delhi, Aug 16 (EFE).- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched a 120-ton “mini rocket” aimed at lowering the prices of satellite launches into space and facilitating their use on a commercial scale.
“The third developmental flight of SSLV is successful. The SSLV-D3 rocket placed EOS-08 satellite precisely into the orbit,” ISRO said in a post on social networking platform X.
With this launch, ISRO completed the development of the mini-rocket and opened the door to its use for commercial missions, said the head of the space agency, S. Somanath.
“SSLV is designed for large-scale production, flexible integration and minimal tests prior to launch. In fact, full rocket can be rested and kept in storage,” Somanath said.
The spacecraft is 34 meters long and two meters in diameter, and its takeoff mass is around 120 tons, according to ISRO.
By comparison, the LVM3 rocket that launched the Chandrayaan-3 probe to the moon has a liftoff mass of 640 tons, with a height of 43.5 meters and a diameter of 4 meters.
The SSLV can carry satellites weighing up to 500 kilograms into a 500-kilometer orbit.
The Indian government made the decision to open the doors of the Indian space industry to the private sector in 2020, and the first privately developed rocket in the Asian country took off in 2022.
India has one of the most active space programs in the world, and began placing satellites into the Earth’s orbit in 1999.
Its missions to the Moon and Mars, as well as its economic launches of dozens of satellites at the same time, have led many countries to choose India to put their small satellites into orbit. EFE
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