New Delhi: India has launched 285 customer satellites from 29 foreign countries, the Union government informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. The statistics were presented in the Upper House by Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS), Personnel, PG and Pensions.
"During 2016-2017 and 2021-2022 a total of 285 customer satellites from 29 foreign countries were successfully launched onboard PSLV on a commercial basis," stated Singh in a written reply.
According to the statistics presented by the MoS, India launched 122 foreign satellites in 2016-17, 57 in 2017-18 and 32 in 2018-19. He further stated that India launched 50 such satellites in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
The highest number of such satellites were from the USA (222) while Lithuania turned out to be a distant second with seven satellites.
As for the number of spacecrafts launched by India from 2016-17 to 2021-22, the MoS stated that a total of 329 spacecrafts were launched during the time out of which the majority were launched in 2016-17 (135).
He further stated that during the same time period a total of 45 spacecrafts were launched by India for domestic use.
