India launched into orbit a rocket carrying a replacement satellite that was destroyed last year, competing for global satellite launch business. The 49-metre (1,481-feet) rocket carrying the Insat-4CR satellite blasted off from the Sriharikota space station in southern India at 6:21 pm (1251 GMT) after a two-hour delay due to a technical glitch.

“It was a very nice take off with the evening skies so luminous and majestic and the thundering sound of the rocket,” said Indian Space Research Organisation chief G. Madhavan Nair after the launch.

“We had really gone through the mill. On one side we had the anxiety coming from the previous failure.”

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