ISRO's successful record launch sets new standard in space race, says Chinese media

New Delhi: The Chinese media on Monday said that India's recent successful record launch of 104 satellites has ramped up the space race, adding that it was a wake-up call for the country's commercial space industry.

China may fast-track the commercialisation of its rocket launches after India's success , Chinese-state run media quoted officials as saying in a report titled 'India's satellite launch ramps up space race'.

Zhang Yonghe, director with the new technology department of the Shanghai Engineering Centre for Microsatellites, believes that India did a better job promoting its launch services internationally than China, the report said.

"The launch indicated that India can send commercial satellites into space at lower costs, giving the country's competitiveness in the global race for the burgeoning commercial space businesses," Zhang Yonghe, director with the new technology department of the Shanghai Engineering Centre for Microsatellites, said.

Acknowledging that after reaching Mars ahead of China, India stole the march last week by putting 104 satellites into orbit from a single rocket, Zhang said, "China will likely fast-track the commercialisation of its rocket launches to vie for the world's burgeoning small satellite launch market.

"The Wednesday's launch is India's latest triumph for its space programme," a Global Times report said.

"In 2014, India became the fourth country to successfully send a spacecraft to orbit Mars, signalling a regional rivalry with China which suffered a failure in its Mars mission in 2012," it said.

"Nearly all of its 103 smaller satellites are from other countries including Israel, Kazakhstan, Switzerland and the US," it said.

After Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s successful feat, the Chinese daily, part of the ruling Communist Party of China publications, had said the achievement made Indians proud but it sought to belittle the significance saying that its impact is "limited".

The state-run Global Times had earlier criticised India for its Mars mission overtaking China despite 'millions of poor and illiterate people.

While praising the record launch as "India's triumph", today's report also said "with respect to the research and development of both military and commercial rocket launch services, India lags behind China, the US and Russia".

"India cannot match them yet unless it has enough rockets types to fulfil all satellites launches," it quoted Zhang as saying.

Xue Lijun, general manager assistant of Shenzhen Aerospace Dongfanghong Development Ltd said that India's launch on Wednesday is a breakthrough in terms of numbers, but not in technology.

"Technologically speaking, the launch did not have any big difficulties what [Indian engineers] need to do is to avoid the conflicts among satellites, which involves lots of calculation and data analysis, but is not a tough task," Xue told the daily.

"The 104 satellites are mostly in the same orbit, indicating that India still lacks capabilities of sending multiple satellites into various orbits," the report quoted the "experts" as saying.

Adding another cap to its feather, the Indian space agency created history last week by successfully placing 104 satellites in orbit, including the country's Cartosat-2 earth observation satellite, on a single rocket.

ISRO's February 15, 2017 mega launch was the highest number of satellites ever launched in a single mission.

(With PTI inputs)