Backslaps and champagne all round at the Indian space agency where a successful rocket launch on Sunday put their plans to take a share of the satellite launch market back on track (press release). Last year a launch attempt using the same rocket design went disastrously wrong after a liquid booster failed. Now the Indian Space Research Organisation “has several reasons to be delighted”, says the Hindustan Times.

The new launch from the island of Sriharikota, which represents the return to flight of its geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle, was two hours behind schedule after problems with the rocket (Times of India). Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-F04 put INSAT 4CR, a two tonne communications satellite that will do the job that the satellite lost in last year’s accident was meant to do, into orbit. The first orbit raising manoeuvre was carried out yesterday (press release).

“It has been an excellent performance of the launch vehicle. There have been a number of critical moments on this happy occasion,” said G. Madhavan Nair, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief says in the Times. Space.com points out that the rocket in fact underperformed just a little, leaving the satellite in a slightly low orbit

Space.com also reports that India is due to launch another satellite later this month, when a smaller launch vehicle will put the Israeli spy satellite into a polar orbit.

All this will come as a morale boost to the ISRO, which also recently suffered the loss of two senior officials in a car accident, reports the Indo-Asian News Service. AFP says the launch was “viewed as crucial to India’s aims to grab a slice of the 2.5-billion-dollar heavy satellite launch business”. Nair is quoted by the news wire as saying: “This mission from all point of view has been highly dramatic. … We had really gone through the mill. On one side we had the anxiety coming from the previous failure.”

Image: fully integrated GSLV at assembly building / ISRO