ISRO’s Heaviest-Ever Launch: India Carries US Satellite to Orbit

ISRO ended another remarkable year by completing yet another successful mission which made headlines. The LVM3-M6 mission saw ISRO place the next-generation communication satellite of the US, named BlueBird Block-2, in low-Earth orbit- the heaviest satellite ever to be launched from India.

The Indian government leaders, including the Vice President and the Prime Minister, congratulated the ISRO team for the successful mission, hailing it as a significant move towards building India's capabilities for launching heavy payloads into space as well as in the international commercial satellite market.  They also linked the achievement with the overall initiative of making India 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'.

Besides this technological accomplishment, the mission also bears a commercial significance since the fact that the next generation satellite of a US company was launched into space by an Indian launch vehicle indicates increasing confidence of the world in the heavy lift capabilities of ISRO. With increasing demand for launching satellites due to various applications like broadband constellations and earth observation systems, India is becoming a more credible option in the industry.