On January 24, 2019 at 18:07 UTC the PSLV-DL rocket-carrier was launched from Sriharikota spaceport, 80 km from Chennai, India. The rocket orbited the “Microsat-R” Indian military Earth observation satellite. But a major objective of the launch was to demonstrate using the PSLV’s fourth stage as an experiment base in orbit after deploying the military satellite.