February 11, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1422

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NEW DELHI, Feb 10: India has successfully carried out the “full test firing” of a domestically developed powerful cryogenic engine used in rockets to launch satellites in geostationary orbits, the PTI reported on Sunday.

The successful test has propelled India into an elite group of five nations who have similar capabilities — US, Russia, France, China and Japan.

Member of India’s space commission U.R. Rao said the test was carried out on Saturday in Tamil Nadu.

An effort to carry out the same test in February 2000 had to be aborted by scientists and engineers due to technical reasons. Officials said the cryogenic engine would probably need to be put through a few more tests before it could be declared to be completely ready.—AFP