India puts record 104 satellites into orbit

India put a record 104 satellites from a single rocket into orbit on Wednesday in the latest triumph for its famously frugal space program.

Celebrations erupted among scientists at the southern spaceport of Sriharikota as the head of the Indian Space Research Organization announced that all the satellites had been ejected as planned.

“My hearty congratulations to the ISRO team for this success,” A.S. Kiran Kumar, the agency's director, told those gathered in an observatory to track the progress of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately congratulated the scientists for the success, which smashes a 39-satellite record previously held by Russia.

“This remarkable feat ... is yet another proud moment for our space scientific community and the nation,” Modi wrote on Twitter.

The rocket took off at 9:28 am and cruised at 27,000 km/h, putting all the 104 satellites into orbit in around 30 minutes, according to ISRO.

The rocket’s main cargo was a 714 kilogram satellite for Earth observation but it was also loaded with 103 “nano satellites” weighing a combined 664 kg. The smallest weighed only 1.1 kg.

Nearly all of the nano satellites are from other countries, including Israel, Kazakhstan, Switzerland and 96 from the United States, most of those photographic satellites owned by Planet Inc of San Francisco. Only three satellites belonged to India.

The launch is another feather in the cap for ISRO, which sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars in 2013 at a cost of just $73 million, compared with NASA's Maven Mars mission’s $671 million price tag.

ISRO is also mulling over the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus.

The business of putting commercial satellites into space for a fee is growing as phone, internet and other companies, as well as countries, seek greater and more high-tech communications.

India has carved out a reputation as a reliable low-cost option, relying in part on its skill in developing cheap alternatives.

Modi has often hailed India’s low-budget space technology, quipping in 2014 that a rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit had cost less to make than the Hollywood film Gravity.