BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organisation‘s (Isro) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C20 Monday successfully launched the joint Indo-French satellite Saral, along with six other satellites in its 23rd flight from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.

Other satellites that launched with Saral include Unibrite (NLS 8.1) and Brite (NLS 8.2) from Austria, Sapphire and Neossat from Canada, Aaausat-3 (NLS 8.3) from Denmark and STRaND-1 from the United Kingdom.

The satellite was launched in the presence of President of India Pranab Mukherjee along with the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, E. S. L. Narasimhan, Andhra Pradesh (AP) CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Minister of State (Prime Minister‘s Office) V Narayanasamy, and other dignitaries from the Government of AP.

At the completion of the countdown, PSLV-C20 lifted off from the First Launch Pad at SDSC SHAR, at 1801 hrs (IST) with the ignition of the first stage of the launch vehicle. The important flight events, namely, stage ignitions, heat-shield separation, stage separations and satellite injections took place exactly as planned.

After a flight of 17 minutes 55 seconds, the main payload, Saral, weighing 407 kg was injected to an orbit very close to the intended orbit. Following this, the six auxiliary satellites were also successfully injected.