The Indian Space Research Organisation on Monday launched a satellite of its own and 28 nano satellites of its international customers, using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, from Sriharikota. The satellite, called EMISAT, is aimed at electromagnetic spectrum measurement.

The launch of PSLV-C45 took place at 9.27 am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. EMISAT and the 28 other satellites were successfully placed in the orbit, the space agency said.

“PSLV-C45 is now marching towards the 485 km orbit to do its function as an orbital platform for experiments,” ISRO chairman K Siva said, according to ANI. “I want to thank the team members for making the mission a success.”

The EMISAT weighs 436 kg, while the other 28 customer satellites weigh 220 kg in total. Two of the customer satellites belong to Lithuania, one each to Spain and Switzerland and the rest to the United States.

The mission will place three payloads – Automatic Identification System, Automatic Packet Repeating System and India and Advanced Retarding Potential Analyzer for Ionospheric Studies.

The EMISAT was successfully put into a sun-synchronous polar orbit soon after the launch.

ISRO said the satellites are being launched under commercial agreements, PTI reported.

Former ISRO chariman G Madhavan Nair said PSLV-C45 launch is a very important milestone for the agency. “It is not only going to launch our own satellite but also those from other nations,” Nair told ANI. “Uniqueness of this mission is it is going to place satellites in three different orbits. I hope it will be 100% success as usual.”