It was the 15th consecutive successful mission for the 44-metre,
230-tonne launch vehicle, designated C-14 for this mission, ever since it failed
on its debut on September 20, 1993.

"The PSLV is like old wine, it's
improving with age,'' said ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair after what he said was
an excellent and precise launch. Oceansat-2, the country's second ocean studies
satellite that aims to aid fishermen in identifying fishing zones and weathermen
to forecast cyclones by measuring sea surface winds, was injected in a 728-km
orbit, exactly 1,081 seconds after lift-off at 11.51 am.

For those
who watched the clear skies above the spaceport in the Satish Dhawan Space
Centre, but for a few innocuous cloudy patches, there would have been little
indication of the initial glitches. During the 51-hour countdown (which began on
Monday), scientists discovered an anomaly in the reaction control package. "We
replaced it immediately. Normally, it would have taken a week, but we didn't
want to lose even a minute,'' Nair said later.

Ultimately, it was a

 

In a

LONDON: After Indian and Sri Lankan embassies it was the turn of China to face the ire of LTTE sympathisers with some 150 of them carrying flags and chanting slogans attacked the mission of the Com

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Democratic Presidential frontrunner Barack Obama had visited India