Five UK satellites go into orbit on Indian rocket

An Indian rocket has put five UK satellites in orbit.

It is thought to be the largest number of wholly British-built spacecraft to go up on a single launch.

The quintet includes three satellites to image the Earth and support disaster monitoring and relief, and two to test technologies that could be used on future spacecraft, the BBC News reports.

The Indian space agency's PSLV rocket lifted off from Sriharikota at 21:58 local time (17:28 BST).

It was the vehicle's heaviest load to date - a total of 1,440kg.

The trio of imaging spacecraft - known as DMC-3 - were built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) in Guildford and will be in the sole operational control of its subsidiary, DMCii.

Each platform weighs 447kg and sees the Earth in a range of visible and infrared wavelengths.

The resolution achieved by the optics surpasses that on any of Surrey Satellite's previous spacecraft, tracking features down to just a metre across.

The capacity on the DMC-3 satellites has been leased to a company from China - 21st Century Aerospace Technology Ltd (21AT) - to help them survey the fast-growing Asian nation.

This is a different business model to the one SSTL and DMCii have traditionally used.

In the past, imaging data has been sold by the square kilometre. Merely leasing spacecraft time is something that is done in the telecoms sector.

"Most folk don't buy a whole telecommunications satellite; they buy transponder time by the hour," explained SSTL chairman Sir Martin Sweeting.