25-May-1999India blasts its way into the global satellite launch vehicle market with the PSLV-C2 deploying two foreign satellites besides the Indian remote sensing satellite, IRS-P4.

25-May-1999

India blasts its way into the global satellite launch vehicle market with the PSLV-C2 deploying two foreign satellites besides the Indian remote sensing satellite, IRS-P4.

PSLV-C2 was the second operational launch and overall fifth mission of the PSLV program. This launch was also the forty-third launch by Indian Space Research Organisation since its first mission on 1 January 1962. The vehicle carried three satellites which were deployed in the Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit. The vehicle carried India's first remote sensing satellite Oceansat-1 (IRS-P4) as the main payload. It also carried South Korean satellite Kitsat-3 and German satellite DLR-Tubsat as auxiliary payloads. PSLV-C2 was the first Indian Expendable launch vehicle to carry and deploy more than one satellite in a mission. This was also India's and ISRO's first commercial spaceflight where South Korea and Germany each paid $1.0 million (equivalent to $1.53 million in 2019) to ISRO for launching their satellites.