Insat 2E put in orbit

BANGALORE, APRIL 10: The Insat 2E was today successfully placed in its geostationary orbit by the spacecraft controllers of the Indian Sp...

BANGALORE, APRIL 10: The Insat 2E was today successfully placed in its geostationary orbit by the spacecraft controllers of the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO.

The Liquid Apogee Motor LAM on board the satellite was fired for 219 seconds at 9:37 am. The fourth and final firing will now make the 2E drift from 74 degree East longitude to 83 degree East longitude, its intended destination. Here, it will be co-located with Insat 1D, an ISRO release said.

It will, however, take the satellite a week before it finally drifts and reaches its space home, sources in ISRO said.

Once the ISRO-built satellite reaches its destination in space, the Insat Master Control Facility MCF at Hassan will start checking its payloads before it is certified ready for use8217;.

The satellite is expected to become operational by April end or early May, and will be available for user agencies.

Even while the satellite drifts to its destination, MCF will deploy its two antennae, solar array and solar sail. Thedeployment which will provide power to the payloads and sub-systems on board the satellite, has been planned for April 11.

MCF commanded the satellite to its present location after the fourth firing of the 440 Newton thrust liquid apogee motor, which successfully completed its function.

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All subsystems of the satellite were normal8217; and the satellite, which is now within Master Control Facility8217;s radio visibility, is being monitored continuously.

Insat 2E was injected into the orbit by the European-built Ariane 42P launcher on April 3 from Kourou in French Guyana.

The satellite8217;s transfer orbit 250 km perigee and 36,155 km apogee was moved to the geostationary orbit in four firings, as against the intended three.

The first 75-minute LAM firing on April 4, lasted only 16 minutes because the satellite went out of the MCF8217;s visibility. The LAM, developed indigenously by the Liquid Propulsion Centre at Thiruvananthapuram was fired thrice more. The LAM was fired for almost two hours for the Insat 2E toachieve its present orbit.