ISRO launches heaviest foreign satellite ever from Indian soil

SRIHARIKOTA: India’s space agency delivered a festive showstopper on Christmas Eve, thundering its most powerful rocket off the pad and lifting the heaviest foreign satellite ever launched from Indian soil into low Earth orbit.

At 8.55 am IST, ISRO’s LVM3 heavy-lift launcher rose from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, carrying AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird Block-2, a massive 6.5-tonne communications satellite built to beam broadband straight to ordinary smartphones.

The mission, LVM3-M6, marked the sixth operational flight of the rocket and Isro’s 101st orbital success. It was executed as a fully commercial launch for US-based AST SpaceMobile through NewSpace India Limited, underscoring India’s growing clout in the global launch market.

Nicknamed Bahubali for its sheer heft, the 640-tonne, 43.5-metre-tall launcher performed textbook precision. Twin S200 solid boosters, the L110 liquid core and the C25 cryogenic upper stage worked in seamless sequence to inject the satellite into a 520 to 600 km low Earth orbit, with orbital dispersion of less than 2 km.

In a post-launch address, ISRO chief said the mission set a new benchmark for Indian launch capability, calling the performance among the best achieved anywhere in the world.

The payload itself is a technological bruiser. BlueBird Block-2 carries a 223 sq metre phased-array antenna designed to deliver 4G and 5G connectivity directly to unmodified mobile phones, promising coverage in remote and underserved regions without relying on ground towers. AST SpaceMobile described the deployment as a major step towards a space-based cellular network to rival Starlink.

The launch capped a busy year for the LVM3, following high-profile missions including Chandrayaan-3 and OneWeb constellation deployments, as well as a November flight that placed India’s heaviest naval communications satellite in orbit.

For India, the success sharpens its edge as a reliable commercial launch provider. With Gaganyaan crewed missions on the horizon and foreign customers lining up, the message was clear as the rocket’s plume lit up the Andhra skies: India is no longer just launching satellites, it is muscling its way to the front rank of global space commerce.