The anxiety at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre was palpable. As the countdown ended, ISRO's chairman G. Madhavan Nair and his team could hardly believe their eyes. ISRO's pride was skyrocketing. Despite their optimism, it was a nail-biting launch when Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off with 10 satellites from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on April 28. A few days prior to the launch, low pressure over the Bay of Bengal was looming large. But it had luckily moved away. Even after the blast-off, there was a tense moment when the telemetry signal indicating separation of the eight nano-satellites did not reach the ground. Dark memories of the 25-year-old taunts when Indian satellite launch vehicles plunged into the sea returned. But that was momentary; India had created history, surpassing the mightiest space powers. It was not luck, but perseverance and a "will to win", as Nair put it in another context, that made his team put the giant CARTOSAT, a mini-satellite and eight foreign nano-satellites into 600-km-high orbits. "We have shown the world that we can do multiple launches with precision," said Nair. Indeed, it was a capability statement to the world, which had seen Proton Space Agency delivering seven, the European Space Agency five and the American NASA four satellites in one go into orbit. NASA had attempted a 10-satellite launch but failed. None except the Russians, with their 13 last year, had attempted to put so many satellites in one go into orbit. The 'capability statement' contains several messages. The most obvious, of course, is that India is now a serious player in the satellite launch market into which the big powers had prevented India from entering by denying cryogenic engine technology for its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). Indeed, the perfect-10 launch was by no means commercial. As the eight nano-satellites were built by universities in the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Canada and Denmark, Antrix Corporation, ISRO's Rs 660-crore commercial arm, charged just $12,000 per kilogram. According to Antrix managing director Sridhara Murthi, the prevailing rate is more than $ 20,000. Thus, the launch was a spectacular ad clip to the world. "Our costs will be about 60 per cent cheaper than what is charged by advanced countries," said Nair. A truly commercial launch will take place next year with GSLV Mark-3, which can carry a two-tonne satellite. Murthi expects that with GSLV, India will capture about 10 to 15 per cent of the $250-billion satellite launch market. Meanwhile, PSLV will continue to launch small and medium satellites, and of course the Chandrayaan satellite to the moon's orbit later this year. Th'e hoopla over the launch deflected world attention from the 690-kg CARTOSAT-2A, which many describe as India's first spy satellite, but ISRO prefers to call it a civilian satellite. ISRO describes it as a state-of-the art remote sensing satellite with a spatial resolution of about one metre and a swath of 9.6km. The satellite carries a panchromatic camera capable of taking black-and-white pictures in the visible region of electromagnetic spectrum. The highly agile CARTOSAT-2A is steerable along as well as across its course to facilitate imaging of any area more frequently. According to Nair, one-metre resolution is required for many civilian applications, including checking alignment while building roads. Perhaps because of the sensitivity involved, Indian scientists have been reluctant to talk about CARTOSAT's potential. As they had been talking about its launch in August, the April 28 launch was a surprise to many. According to ISRO, "Soon after separation from PSLV-C9's fourth stage, the two solar panels of CARTOSAT-2A were deployed.... High-resolution data from CARTOSAT-2A will be invaluable in urban and rural development applications calling for large-scale mapping." The fact is that one-metre camera resolution is widely acknowledged to be ideal for military. An officer in the Indian Air Force's space cell, set up in anticipation of a government clearance for an aerospace command, observed, "Defence services at present play only a passive role as captive customers, making use of limited satellite capability. This is now expected to change slowly. At least a beginning has been made." The earlier-launched CARTOSAT-2 had military applications, and reports from IAF's space cell had described it as a military satellite. Incidentally, Squadron Leader K.K.Nair, joint director, operations (space) at Indian Air Force headquarters, wrote in the United Service Institution Journal, "Civilian earth-observation satellites are used for military remote-sensing; civilian (even commercial) communication satellites have been known to carry military transponders and military navigation satellites have overwhelming civilian users...." Thus, the perfect-10 launch marks a deviation from the course that Indian space programme has been following till now. "India's strength all along has been in satellite-building and remote-sensing, and the world powers were expecting that India would put its remote-sensing capabilities for strategic use," pointed out a scientist. "We could have done it long ago, but as a developing nation, we had put our priorities in the civilian sector, especially in communication. Thus, the launch of CARTOSAT-2A is also a kind of strategic statement on the part of India." The Indian armed forces have been requesting ISRO for two more imaging satellites. China has six dedicated military satellites, though it is not known how many of them are for spying and how many for communication. "With three, we will be able to cover the entire South Asian region," said an Indian Navy officer.