Nellore: ISRO launched successfully its golden jubilee milestone 628 Kg RISAT- 2BR1 apart from nine foreign customer satellites on Wednesday. With the viscious orange flames at its tail brightening the sky, the rocked lifted off as per schedule at 3.25 pm and slowly gather velocity to penetrate into the skies enthralling the people at the space port,  while engines thunder-like noise adding to the spectacle.

   As per the ISRO officials the first launch pad was modified on a war-footing. After 16 minutes and 27 seconds flight into the space, RISAT-2BR1 was successfully injected into an orbit of 576 Kms.  After a minute, nine commercial satellites were injected into their intended orbits. After separation, solar arrays of RISAT-2BR1 were deployed automatically and the ISRO telemetry tracking and command network at Bengaluru assumed control of the satellite. It will bring to its final operational configuration, in the future.

   ISRO Chairman Dr. K. Sivan declared that today we achieved an important milestone in the history of PSLV by successfully launching its 50^th mission. The versatile launcher has lifted off 52.7 tonnes into space so far, of which 17% belongs to customer satellite, he added. PSLV rocket teams were spear headed by extraordinary achievers like Srinivasan, Madhavan Nair, R.V. Perumal and Ramakrishanan among others in the last 26 years, he added. Dr. K. Sivan released a book titled ‘PSLV @ 50’ to commemorate the historic occasion, that re-traces each of the earlier missions and satellites they carried.