India's recent success with space missions has prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to claim that the country has become a leading player in space sector.
"When it comes to the space sector, bet on India!," Modi wrote on X on Thursday. The PM attached three pictures with the post. One with the caption:
"INDIA'S THE WORLD'S GO-TO LAUNCHPAD", boasted that while only 35 foreign satellites were sent to space by Indian launch vehicles during the 35 years preceding 2014 ( the year Modi took over as the PM), 398 foreign satellites have been sent to space by the ISRO in commercial launches during the 10 years following 2014.
"INDIA IS THE PLACE FOR SATELLITE LAUNCHES", says the second picture as the graphic shows that while 106 sarellites were launched by ISRO before 2014, the number of satellites launched since 2014 is 457.
The number of launch missions by ISRO was 1.2 per year during the 1979 - 2014 period. It has risen up to 5.2 per year during 2014 - 25 screams the third picture which has been captioned "INDIA'S SPACE MISSION JUST WENT INTO OVERDRIVE".
When it comes to the space sector, bet on India! pic.twitter.com/ymmtGkzP7q
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 30, 2025
Modi's post follows ISRO's back to back success this month with the successful docking by two Indian satellites in space and the 100th launch from the Sriharikota spaceport by an ISRO rocket on Wednesday to put a navigation satellite In space.
India, though, has to still hire services of other agencies to launch its own heavy satellites in space.
In November last year also, the 4.7 tonne communication satellite GSAT-N2 belonging to the state-run ISRO was put in the orbit by launch services offered by the SpaceX owned by the American billionaire Elon Musk.