The Indian Space Research Organisation on Friday successfully launched India’s 100th satellite and 30 other satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

The launch – ISRO’s first in 2018 – comes four months after an unsuccessful attempt in August 2017 when the heat shield of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carrying the IRNSS-1H (pictured above) did not open for the satellite to be deployed.

Friday’s launch is the 42nd flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C40. It carried the Cartosat-2, an earth observation satellite and 30 other satellites – two from India and 28 from Canada, Finland, France, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The launch is expected to take two hours and 21 seconds. It was scheduled for 9.28 am but was delayed by a minute as there was fear of collision with space debris, NDTV reported.