India to launch record 104 satellites on Feb 15

Of 104 satellites, 33 are Indian, 88 US, rest from Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland, UAE

India will create history by launching a record 104 satellites, including 101 foreign ones, on February 15 from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, an official said on Monday.

"We have tentatively decided to launch the satellites at one go around 9 am into the sun-synchronous orbit, about 500 kms above the earth," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official said.

Of the total earth-observation satellites, three are Indian, 88 are from the US and the remaining are from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

"A 320-tonne rocket -- Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C37) -- will launch all the satellites with a combined weight of 1,500 kg, including the 650 kg remote-sensing Cartosat-2 and two nano-satellites (IA and IB) weighing 15 kg each," the official said.

Though the Indian space agency had launched 20 satellites in one shot on June 22, 2016, the launch of 104 satellites will surpass the 37 satellites launch record set in June 2014 and 29 satellites launched by NASA in 2013.