The feat was performed on the indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in South India with three satellites from India and 101 smaller nano satellites from five other countries – the US, the Netherlands, Israel, Kazakhstan and Switzerland.
This number crushes the previous record of 37 satellites sent into orbit aboard a single Russian Dnepr rocket in June 2014. And it was the 38th consecutive successful flight Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
In 2014, ISRO launched a Mars orbiter, the first Asian country to reach the red planet at fraction of the cost of a similar launch by the US and Europe.
India’s 2014 Mars mission cost less than $75mn, a small fraction of the $671mn the United States spent for a Mars mission that same year.
The Indian space agency has now put some 226 satellites into orbit, including 180 from foreign nations.
Last year alone saw ISRO putting into orbit 34 satellites – 33 satellites with Indian rockets and one (GSAT-18) by French company Arianespace.
Of the 33 satellites launched with Indian rockets, 22 belonged to foreign customers and the remaining 11 were owned by ISRO and a couple of Indian academic institutions.
Calling 2016 a “good” year, ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar said the Indian space agency would launch at least five communication satellites this year.
In June last year, ISRO set a major record when it successfully launched 20 satellites, including its earth observation Cartosat-2 series, in a single mission on board PSLV-C34 from the spaceport in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
A few years ago, India successfully delivered its first domestically-designed cryogenic rocket, joining only a handful of countries that possess the leading technology. The breakthrough caps more than two decades of attempts to master supercool fuels.
Indian space scientists say ISRO plans to use its own Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) satellites for orbit determination on the February 15 mission instead of the US Global Positioning System (GPS) as has been used on previous launches.
The PSLV’s record-setting blast off last week was the first of the year for India, whose next launch is currently scheduled for March with the larger Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk.II deploying the GSAT-9 communications satellite.
PSLV’s next launch is currently expected in April or May with a collection of satellites including India’s EMISat and SPaDEx spacecraft.
India’s record-breaking space mission has clearly shown its growing capabilities and that its space programme has indeed come a long way without much external support.
The country, which is currently Asia’s third largest economy, is now a major player in the commercial space business, which forms the chunk of the global space industry estimated worth $323bn in 2015.