Launch Propels India Toward Commercial Space Business

India proudly proclaimed itself the world’s newest commercial power in space after successfully launching a one-ton satellite into orbit Thursday with a locally produced four-stage rocket.

“In America, the impression may be that India is a very poor country,” said J.C. Malik, editor of Vayu, an Indian magazine that covers developments in aerospace. “But I think that in terms of science, we can compete with anyone.”

The 145-foot rocket, named the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV, lifted off from an island on the coast of Andhra Pradesh state in southern India, and placed an Indian-made, remote-sensing satellite into polar orbit a little more than 500 miles above the Earth.

It was the third and final development flight of the PSLV, which weighs 280 metric tons and is said by India have one of the world’s largest solid-propellant boosters as its first stage.

The rocket’s maiden test on Sept. 20, 1993, failed to put a satellite into orbit. The second flight, on Oct. 15, 1994, succeeded.

Officials of India’s space agency now have the skill and confidence to “commence commercial launches from the next flight,” said Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization.

The biggest commercial launch market is in placing satellites weighing 2 1/2 tons or so into geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles above the planet’s surface. Both that payload and flight capacity are far beyond the PSLV’s powers.

On the other hand, noted Jean-Luc Maslin, a French diplomat based in New Delhi who monitors the Indian space program, India could tempt other Asian countries with prices as low as a quarter of what the Americans or Europeans now charge for a low-altitude launch.