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Is it INSURED?

I am sure it is insured.

However, PSLV, ISRO's rocket has the best success record in the world. It has launched 71 satellites so far. 40 of these where of non Indian so this is not the first time ISRO is launching a non Indian satellite. It took Chandrayaan to moon and Mangalyaan to mars. I am sure Google's satellite is in safe hands here.

Looking up "yaan" - Hindi for vehicle.

Yes, it's like a generic word for this purpose. An instrument/machine that moves, or takes you or stuff from one point to another.

You can put it like "chandra" (moon) + "yaan" and it becomes "a vehicle that goes to the moon; or is built for a purpose related to moon"; or "vaayu" (air) + "yaan" and it becomes an air-plane. "jal" (water) + "yaan" and it's a ship.

In our trains there are "shayan" (sleeping) + "yaan" - here it means "coach", i.e. sleeper coaches as opposed to those sitting coaches.

Probably not necessary. The Indian rockets are generally more cost effective and reliable than the American ones.

Cost effective, sure. But where have you read that they are more reliable?

Google PSLV. It's over two decades since their last launch failure (and 18 years since a partial failure). At least 26 consecutive successful launches since the late 90's putting over 70 satellites into orbit. it also holds the record for the most satellites successfully put into orbit in a single launch.

PSLV has a good record, certainly, at 28 launches with one full and one partial failure. It's not particularly better, though, than Atlas V (52 launches with one partial failure) or Delta IV (28 launches with one partial failure) or Soyuz-FG (49 launches with no failures). Ariane 5 (with 77 flights and 2 full and 2 partial failures--all at the early stages of the program) ain't bad either.

Number of satellites per launch is a curious metric. And a mostly useless one, I would think, considering modern cubesats, nanosats, and (soon) chipsats. I also dispute PSLV holding that record. PSLV C9 seems to have carried 10. Antares Orb-1 in January 2014 is recorded as carrying 34 spacecraft. If KickSat had worked, SpaceX CRS-3 would have ended up deploying something like 110 individual spacecraft.

Cubesats etc. are going to lead to a whole lot of new records that don't mean anything over the next bit of time. FWIW, Orb-1 was an ISS resupply, so you could argue that it didn't really deploy those satellites, just shipped them up to the ISS. However, a Dnepr launch back in June carried 37 satellites and deployed them in to orbit (11 of those belonged to my employer, Planet Labs). http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/06/19/dnepr-launches-37-sat...

I just glanced at the PSLV wikipedia page, and it looks like it's mostly for polar orbits. That's pretty cool, as it's quite different from the ISS' 55 degree inclination orbit that the commercial resupplies can get you, and changing inclination is expensive in terms of fuel.

As a guy with vested interest in getting more satellites up in orbit, this is great news!

Thanks for the info, looks like quite a few reliable launch vehicles out there. I was mostly just trying to counter the kneejerk comment higher up about insurance and Indian rockets.

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