India's first satellite, designed and built by ISRO and launched on a Soviet rocket on 19 April 1975 to carry out experiments in X-ray astronomy, aeronomy and solar physics.
Re-entered Earth's atmosphere in 1992 after 17 years in orbit.
Aryabhata was India's first satellite. ISRO designed and built it entirely in India and named it after the famous Indian astronomer.
Its experiments covered three fields: X-ray astronomy, aeronomy (the study of the upper atmosphere) and solar physics. They included detectors for cosmic X-rays, solar neutrons and gamma rays, an ionospheric electron trap and an ultraviolet sensor.
Aryabhata weighed 360 kg. It was an almost round body with 26 faces, and solar cells on 24 of those faces supplied 46 watts of power. It was spin-stabilised and sent its data to the ground on VHF radio.
A tape recorder stored data at 256 bits per second and played it back ten times faster. Ground stations for telemetry and commands were set up at Sriharikota.
A Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket launched Aryabhata from Kapustin Yar on 19 April 1975. ISRO lists the rocket as C-1 Intercosmos and the site as the Volgograd launch station. The satellite reached a low Earth orbit of about 563 × 619 km, tilted 50.7° to the equator.
Aryabhata was designed for a six-month mission. ISRO says the spacecraft's main systems stayed active until March 1981. It stayed in orbit for nearly 17 years and re-entered the atmosphere on 11 February 1992, the date recorded in the public satellite catalogue.