New Delhi - An Indian rocket carrying a weather satellite developed in collaboration with France was successfully launched from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday, officials said.
The 1,000-kilogram Megha-Tropiques is a tropical weather monitoring satellite.
It is designed to collect data on the water cycle in the tropical atmosphere and will help climate change research and weather predictions including the seasonal monsoon rains.
It was the 19th consecutive successful launch by India's indigenously developed Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official BR Guruprasad said.
The Megha Tropiques and four smaller satellites which were part of the rocket's payload were all successfully placed in orbit, with performance tests due in a few days, the official said.
French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales built three instruments for the weather satellite while a fourth was developed jointly with ISRO.
The three smaller satellites carried by the PSLV-C18 include the VesselSat from LuxSpace of Luxembourg which will help locate ships on the high seas.
The cost of the satellite mission is estimated at 5 billion rupees (about 101 million dollars). - Sapa-dpa