The satellite, the second commercial mission for another country carried out by the Indian Space Research Organisation, was later successfully steered into its predetermined orbit.

“It was a grand success,” the official said, declining to give further details of the launch from the Sriharikota space station in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

The “copybook” launch by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, the workhorse of the Indian space programme, had been kept secret because of its “geopolitical sensitivity,” NDTV television network also reported.

The 300-kilogram (650-pound) Tecsar is reported to be Israel’s most advanced satellite, and equipped with a camera that can take pictures of small targets under cloudy and foggy conditions, boosting its intelligence gathering capabilities.

Israel took the decision to launch it from India three years ago. It contracted India because Israel lacks a vehicle capable of boosting the satellite into a polar orbit, according to defence analysts.

“The kind of low-earth polar orbit they are putting satellite into, it is meant to give Israel the capability to keep an eye on the Iranian nuclear programme,” said a defence analyst who declined to be named.

“This is bound to be seen in the Islamic world as a sinister tie-up between Israel and India,” the analyst said.

He said the launch of the satellite was also an “important milestone” in the commercialisation of India’s 45-year-old space programme, which put an Italian satellite in orbit in April last year for a fee of 11 million dollars.

India wants to compete alongside the United States, Russia, China, the Ukraine and the European Space Agency in offering commercial satellite launch services, a market worth up to 2.5 billion dollars a year.

India started its space programme in 1963, and has since developed and put its own satellites into space. It has also designed and built launch rockets to reduce its dependence on overseas space agencies.

It carried out the first successful launch of a domestic satellite, which weighed 35 kilograms, by an Indian-built rocket in 1980.