NEW DELHI — India has successfully launched a new satellite, Megha-Tropiques, to study climatic and atmospheric changes in tropical regions. Produced jointly by India and France, the one-ton satellite was one of four spacecraft placed into orbit on Oct. 12 by the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the launch pad near Sriharikota at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in southern India. The PSLV stood 44 meters (145 ft.) tall and weighed 230 tons at launch.

NEW DELHI — Still recovering from repeated failures of its heavy-lift Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in 2010, the Indian Space Research Organization is eyeing the next flight of the vehicle in 2012. “We have a major task ahead of us ... [the] development and perfection of [the] indigenous cryogenic stage,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. “We are making good progress and we plan to have the next flight of GSLV ... in the second quarter of 2012.”

LOSS AT HAL: Baldev Singh, chief test pilot and director of corporate planning and marketing for Indian state-run defense powerhouse Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), is dead in an apparent suicide. His body was found Oct. 11 hanging from a tree at the tourist spot Nandi Hills near Bengaluru, police say. The precise circumstances of his death are still not known. Singh, 58, was involved with the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program from 1990 onward and was assigned to the Aeronautical Development Agency for this purpose.