India successfully launched its first rocket using domestically produced booster technology on Sunday.
An Indian-made rocket carrying a satellite blasts off from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota. Photo: AFP
The rocket blasted off from the Sriharikota space centre as scheduled after several previous missions had failed.
A two-tonne communications satellite was deployed 17 minutes after blast-off, said Indian Space Research Organisation chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan.
"I am extremely proud and happy to say that Team ISRO has done it," Radhakrishnan announced on Sunday at mission control.
The mission cost 3.65 billion rupees ($US58 million) - 2.2 billion rupees for the rocket and 1.45 billion rupees for the satellite.
India has for years been trying to develop its own cryogenic rocket engines that are designed to put heavier satellites into high orbits, about 36,000km from Earth. Super-cooled liquid fuel is used.
The technology has only been successfully developed by the United States, Russia, France, Japan and China as well as the European Space Agency.
Since 2001, India has bought cryogenic engines from Russia and seven of them have been used.
An attempt to import the technology from Russia in 1992 failed because of opposition from the United States.
India's first satellite launch, which was an Italian satellite, was in 2007.
