On September 9, 2012 at 04:23 UTC the PSLV C-21 rocket-carrier was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island, India's primary launch site on the country's east coast about 50 miles north of Chennai. The PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket orbited the French "Spot 6” commercial Earth imaging satellite and the student-built "Proiteres” microsatellite for the Osaka Institute of Technology in Japan. The Spot 6 satellite will collect high-resolution imagery, resolving objects as small as 1.5 meters. Spot 6 was built by Astrium Satellites of France.
