Filed at 10:33 a.m. ET

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - India plans to test fly a new home-grown satellite launch rocket next week as part of a program to cut reliance on foreign launch vehicles, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Wednesday.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) officials told the news agency that the first experimental flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, called GSLV-D1, had been set tentatively for March 28.

Experts say the launch vehicle is significant because it would carry deep into space a payload of more than 1.5 tons for the first time on a rocket built by India. It would replace costlier foreign launch services.

``We are hopeful of having the launch as per schedule, if everything goes well,'' ISRO Chairman K. Kasturirangan told PTI, adding that a launch window lasting until April 3 has been fixed as a precaution.

He was speaking at the launching center of Sriharikota near the southern city of Madras.

The test flight would not carry a regular satellite but an experimental payload. Two more developmental flights are scheduled before the vehicle is included in the government's satellite launch program.

India's decades-old space program has in the past relied heavily on France's Arianspace group to put its satellites into space.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), GSLV's predecessor in the program, has been used to launch smaller remote-sensing satellites. The GSLV is intended to carry high-capacity communications satellites.