SAEDNEWS: On Sunday, India’s space agency launched a powerful military communications satellite for the navy aboard its most advanced rocket, setting a record as the heaviest payload ever sent into orbit from Indian soil.
The CMS-03 satellite, also called GSAT-7R, blasted off atop a Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) rocket from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 6:56 a.m. EST (1056 GMT; 5:26 p.m. local time) on Sunday, Nov. 2.
About 16 minutes after liftoff, the LVM3 placed the 9,700-pound (4,400-kilogram) spacecraft into a geostationary transfer orbit, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This made it the heaviest communications satellite ever sent from India into such an orbit.
Eventually, CMS-03 will settle into a geostationary orbit roughly 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, maintaining a fixed position relative to the planet’s surface—a preferred orbit for communications and surveillance satellites.
CMS-03 is set to replace GSAT-7, launched in 2013, as the Indian Navy’s primary communications platform. “With upgraded payloads, GSAT-7R or CMS-03 is designed to expand secure, multi-band communications for the Navy’s growing blue-water operations,” the Times of India reported. The satellite will enable real-time communications for naval missions, air defense, and strategic command control over a wide swath of oceanic and terrestrial territory.
Sunday’s launch marked the LVM3 rocket’s eighth flight since its debut in December 2014. Its previous mission, in July 2023, successfully carried the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander toward the moon’s south pole.
