The Indian space program’s new small satellite launcher, the SSLV or Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, conducted its launch debut from Sriharikota, India on Sunday, August 7 at 03:48 UTC. However, an issue with the fourth stage resulted in the satellites being deployed in an unusable orbit.
The SSLV program’s genesis was a December 2015 National Institute of Advanced Studies proposal to create a “Small Satellite Launch Vehicle-1” to launch small national security payloads on demand and with a lower cost and higher cadence than the Indian Space Research Organisation’s existing rockets could provide.