Sriharikota(AP), Dec 11 (PTI) Achieving a historic milestone of a 50th flight, ISRO's workhorse rocket PSLV on Wednesday successfully injected into orbit the country's remote imaging earth observation satellite RISAT-2BR1 along with nine other foreign commercial satellites.

The launch also marks the 75th vehicle mission from Sriharikota.

The 628kg RISAT-2BR1 satellite is meant for applications in various fields like agriculture, forestry and disaster management support, as well as military purposes.

As many as nine other satellites-- six from the US and one each from Israel, Italy and Japan rode piggy back on the PSLV-C48.

At 3.25 pm, the 44.4 metre tall PSLV-C48 lifted off majestically from the first launch pad at the spaceport here with a thunderous sound.

RISAT-2BR1 was placed into orbit around 16 minutes after lift off while the remaining satellites were released in their respective orbits about five minutes later.

The launch of PSLV-C48/RISAT-2BR1 is the sixth launch by ISRO in 2019. The mission life is five years, ISRO said.

ISRO Chairman K Sivan and other scientists greeted each other as all 10 satellites were injected into the desired orbit.

Later, speaking from the Mission Control Centre, Sivan said this mission was a 'historic' one coinciding with PSLV's 50th flight.

"ISRO has made a historic mission.. I am extremely happy to declare that the 50th PSLV vehicle successfully injected RISAT-2BR1 precisely into the 576 km orbit," he said.

RISAT-2BR1, though a very advanced and complex satellite, was built in a short time, he said and congratulated the team behind the effort.

Sivan hailed the versatility and unbeatable performance of the PSLV for over the past two decades.

Tracing the journey of PSLV, which has five variants, he said the payload capacity was initially about 860 kg and it went up to 1.9 tonnes subsequently.

It has lifted 52.7 tonnes to space, of which 17 per cent corresponded to customer satellites, he said.

The mission was special for another reason as well, since it marked another major milestone "which was the 75th launch from the spaceport of India," the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, he noted.

Sivan recalled and lauded the contributions of the past and present leadership behind PSLV's successful journey in its eventful history of 26 years.

Dubbing the PSLV a "wonderful vehicle," he said Dr Srinivasan conceptualised and configured it, while G Madhavan Nair made it operational.

Also, there were a whole lot of others, including R V Perumal, Ramakrishnan and George Koshy, whose rich contributions propelled the PSLV to great heights, he said.

"Definitely, we have had many successes. At the same time, we have a large number of missions to do.

I am sure team ISRO as usual will rise to the occasion and make every mission a grand success," he said, amid loud applause.

Sivan said PSLV has gone "all over space", placing satellites in orbits, and the trusted vehicle was behind Chandrayaan 1 and the Mars Orbiter Mission.

"Now we are going to send a satellite to the sun's orbit, he said, adding that ISRO was looking at more launches next year with PSLV.

"Next year we have a series of PSLV missions. We also have GSLV launches. Then we also have the maiden mission of SSLV (Small Satellite Launch vehicle) next year...," the ISRO chief said.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director S Somanath hailed the 50th mission, saying "PSLV has hit gold today."

In commemoration of the milestone event, a book, "PSLV-50," chronicling the various missions, the satellites and the leaders behind it, was released by Sivan.

On future missions, Sivan exuded confidence that team ISRO would as usual rise to the occasion and make them all "grand success."

The RISAT-2BR 1 follows RISAT-2B, which was placed successfully in orbit in May this year.

The foreign commercial satellites are being launched under a commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Ltd.

Of the total 50 missions, 48 have been successful for ISRO.

The PSLV has placed around 310 foreign satellites with the first mission in September 1993.

Some significant launches by PSLV include Chandrayaan-1, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and the record launch of 104 satellites in one go earlier.

PSLV-C48 is the second flight with 'QL'configuration equipped with four strap-on motors on its sides, ISRO said.

The first flight with a similar configuration was launched in April 2019 (PSLV-C45/EMISAT and 28 other satellites).

While six satellites from the US would be used for multi-mission remote sensing purpose, the one launched by Italy was aimed at taking up search and rescue.

A radar imaging earth observation satellite built by Japan and another by Israel were also launched.PTI VIJ SA VGN

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)