{"id":368883,"date":"2025-12-25T06:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T06:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368883\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T06:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T06:16:11","slug":"indias-space-agency-launches-its-heaviest-satellite-yet-dw-12-24-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368883\/","title":{"rendered":"India’s space agency launches its heaviest satellite yet \u2013 DW \u2013 12\/24\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indian<\/a> space agency on Wednesday launched a LVM-3 rocket carrying its heaviest-ever satellite \u2014 BlueBird Block-2 \u2014\u00a0from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southern India.<\/p>\n

BlueBird Block-2 weighs 6,100 kilograms (over 6 tons), making\u00a0the largest-ever commercial communications satellite to be deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO) and “the\u00a0heaviest payload to be launched from Indian soil,”\u00a0according to the space agency.<\/p>\n

The LVM3-M6 rocket, built by the US-based company AST SpaceMobile<\/a>, was launched at 8.55 a.m. local time (0330 GMT).\u00a0The satellite was successfully injected into the intended orbit, ISRO said.<\/p>\n

India stepping up its space ambitions<\/p>\n

ISRO plans to use a modified version of the LVM-3 rocket for its future space missions, including the human spaceflight program, Gaganyaan mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Who will win the space race?<\/p>\n

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The milestone launch was lauded by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0“a significant stride” for the space sector.<\/p>\n

“It strengthens India’s heavy-lift launch capability and reinforces our growing role in the global commercial launch market,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Relief and excitement in India at moon landing<\/p>\n

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India is trying to secure its place in the commercial satellite business as its\u00a0phone, internet and other companies seek to expand and improve communications.<\/p>\n

The country is also preparing an unmanned mission to the moon<\/a>\u00a0ahead of its fist human spaceflight, which set for\u00a02027.<\/p>\n

Edited by Darko Janjevic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indian space agency on Wednesday launched a LVM-3 rocket carrying its heaviest-ever satellite \u2014 BlueBird Block-2 \u2014\u00a0from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-368883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}