SRIHARIKOTA (India), Sept 2: India on Sunday sent into orbit a rocket carrying the replacement for a communications satellite destroyed last year, raising its hopes of competing for global satellite launch business.

The 49-metre (151-feet) rocket carrying the Insat-4CR satellite blasted off from the Sriharikota space station in southern India at 6:21 pm (1301 GMT) after a two-hour delay due to a technical glitch.

Weighing 2,130 kilogrammes (4,700 pounds), the satellite is equipped with 12 wideband channels -- known as transponders -- that allow digital transmission on each at the same time by several video and audio networks.

Sunday’s launch was viewed as crucial to India’s aims to grab a slice of the $2.5 billion heavy satellite launch business as well as meet its own booming telecommunications demand.

“It has been an excellent performance,” said Indian Space Research Organisation chief G. Madhavan Nair after the launch, according to a Press Trust of India news agency report. “Today, ISRO has really achieved it.” Anxiety levels were high ahead of the fifth launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket (GSLV); a year after its predecessor had to be destroyed less than a minute after lift off when it veered from its path.

“There have been a number of critical moments on this happy occasion,” said Nair, who was congratulated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday, PTI said.

Cheers and clapping marked the launch, which a spokesman for the Bangalore-based agency said was vital for India’s increasing volumes of fax and Internet traffic, and television and video services.

“The high-powered satellite will augment the country’s communication capacity and help meet increasing demand,” said the spokesman.

Launched in the 1980s, Insat is the largest domestic communication satellite system in the Asia-Pacific region.—AFP