India launches 10 satellites in a day

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-9 blasts off from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota, about 100 km north of the southern Indian city of Chennai, April 28, 2008.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's space agency launched 10 satellites on Monday mainly belonging to Germany and Canada, the Indian Space Research Organisation said, boosting its space research capabilities..

The satellites were carried into space by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which blasted off from a space centre off the country's eastern coast near Chennai.

"The launches were smooth and we saw to it that it went according to plan," a senior ISRO official said by telephone.

The Indian-made Cartosat-2A remote sensing satellite, which is fitted with a high resolution camera for recording clear images from space was the main satellite launched, an ISRO spokesman said from Bangalore.

High resolution images and data from the satellite will be used to manage infrastructure and natural resources in the country, officials said.

The other launches included a mini satellite to provide technological data, which India plans to share with other countries, and eight other smaller research satellites belonging to Germany and Canada under a commercial agreement.

"These launches were very important to boost our space research capabilities," the ISRO official said.