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Mega
satellite GSAT-8 successfully put into transfer orbit
Mega satellite GSAT-8
successfully put into transfer orbit on May 21, 2011
Bangalore, May 21, 2011 (IANS): Country's mega
geo-stationary satellite GSAT-8 was successfully deployed in an
elliptical geo-synchronous transfer orbit on early Saturday by the
Ariane-VA-202 rocket, an official of the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) said. "The 3.1-tonne satellite was
injected in the GTO 31 minutes after it was launched at 0211 IST
and separated from the rocket's upper stage at 1,800 km above
earth," the official of the state-run space agency said.
Earlier, the rocket lifted off successfully from the Kourou
spaceport in French Guiana off the South American coast with two
other payloads.Ariane-V of Arianespace belongs to the European
Space Agency consortium. The Indian spacecraft carries 24
high-power Ku-band transponders for direct-to-home (DTH) services
provided by state- run and private broadcasters.
The space agency's master control facility (MCF) at Hasan,
about 180 km from Bangalore, started receiving the signals from
GSAT-8 within minutes after it entered the geo-synchronous
transfer orbit (GTO). The MCF also took command and control of the
heavy satellite. The satellite will be gradually put into the
36,000-km geosynchronous orbit over the next couple of days and
its antenna and solar panels will be deployed.
"The MCF will test and monitor the health parameters
of the payloads by June 1. It will be available for DTH services
from July 1," ISRO director S Satish said. Along with GSAT-8,
the space agency sent the global position system (GPS) aided geo
augmented navigation (Gagan) as an additional payload to improve the accuracy of the US' GPS.
PSLV launches 5 satellites
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) put five satellites in their
precise orbits on Monday, July 12, 2010 , unequivocally
demonstrating its reliability and robustness. It was a flawless
mission all the way, with the ignition and separation of the
rocket’s four stages taking place on time, the heat-shield
protecting the satellites falling off on schedule and the satellites
flying out of the fourth stage at a velocity of 27,000 km an hour.
The on-board computers worked with clock-work precision. This was
the 16th consecutively successful fight of the PSLV.
The five satellites that were injected into orbit were:
ISRO’s 694-kg Cartosat-2B; the 116-kg Alsat-2A of Algeria; a
6.5-kg nano satellite named NLS 6.1 AISSAT-1 of the Space Flight
Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada; a 1 kg nano satellite
called NLS 6.2 TISAT-1 built by the University of Applied Science
Sciences of Switzerland; and a tiny satellite named Studsat built
by 35 students of seven engineering colleges in Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh. Studsat was the centre of attraction as the
students had designed and built this pico satellite with an
imaging camera and had employed several frontline technologies.
They had also built a clean room to test the satellite and a
ground station in Bangalore to receive its signals.
While the PSLV-C15 cost Rs.80 crore to build, the
Cartosat-2B cost Rs.175 crore. The PSLV - C15 Vehicle Director was
B. Jayakumar, the Satellite Director was M. Krishnaswamy |
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