India launches three satellites on single rocket

India launched a rocket carrying three satellites into orbit on Wednesday in its latest effort to gain a share of the global commercial space market. The main satellite in the launch from the Sriharikota space centre in Andhra Pradesh was the remote-sensing Resourcesat-2, which will study the effect of human life on the Earth's natural resources.
The rocket also carried an Indo-Russian satellite for stellar and atmospheric studies and an imaging orbiter built by the Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University. "The Resourcesat-2 mission is successful," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan announced after all three satellites were released by the rocket 822 kilometres (510 miles) above Earth.