President Mukherjee, PM Modi congratulate ISRO for its longest mission- See tweets!

 New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed ISRO scientists for their successful longest ever launch PSLV satellites from Sriharikota today.

The PSLV takes off to place five foreign and three Indian satellites into two orbits. Carrying the 377 kg SCATSAT-1 and seven other satellites PSLV-C35, lifted off from ISRO's first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 9.12 AM.

Lauding ISRO for the historic feat, President Pranab Mukherjee also congratulated the organization.

This was the first mission of PSLV in which it launched its payloads into two different orbits. The co-passenger satellites were from the US, Canada and Algeria besides from Indian Universities.

ISRO's SCATSAT-1 can generate accurate data on wind patterns over the ocean surface. It is a continuity mission for the Oceansat-2, which has exhausted its operational life. The expected lifespan of SCATSAT-1 is expected to be five years.

The seven other co-passengers in today's mission included three small satellites from Algeria meant for earth observation, remote sensing and technology demonstration, a commercial high resolution imaging micro-satellite of an US agency, the nano-satellite NLS-19 of Canada to experiment on reduction of space debris and two nano-satellites of IIT, Bombay and the PES University, Bengaluru.

(With ANI inputs)