India set a new record in space technology on Wednesday when a PSLV-C34 developed by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully injected 20 satellites including 17 foreign satellites into orbit in a single mission.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C34) weighing 320-tonne took off on its 36th flight at 9.26am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre with 20 satellites including its primary payload Cartosat-2 series, which is used for remote sensing services, and earth observation and imaging satellites from US, Canada, Germany and Indonesia.

The Cartosat-2 was placed in orbit at 9.44am. The weight of Cartosat-2 is 727.5kg and with its launch, the PSLV lifted off a total of 1,288kg in to space and began placing the satellites into orbit about 17minutes later.

In the final stages of the mission, ISRO also showed the capability of the vehicle to place satellites in different orbits. The vehicle reignited twice after its fourth and final stage and entered a few kilometres into another orbit.

According to scientists at ISRO, the demonstration is for their next mission when there plan is to use a single rocket to inject satellites in different orbits.

Isro created a record for the highest number of satellites launched in a single mission when it placed 10 satellites in a PSLV on April 28, 2008. In 2013, Nasa placed 29 satellites in a single mission and Russia in 2014 launched 33 satellites in one launch.

In December 2015, PSLV-C29 had injected six Singapore satellites in to orbit. At that time, the space agency had also conducted a major experiment where the fourth stage was reignited and switched off after the placement of the satellites in orbit.

Apart from Cartosat-2, the satellites launched on Wednesday include Lapan-A3 from Indonesia, Biros from Germany, M3MSat from Canada, SkySat Gen2-1, a Google-made satellite from USA, GHGSat-D from Canada, 12 Dove satellites from USA, Sathyabamasat from Sathyabhama University, Chennai and Swayam from College of Engineering, Pune.