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| INSAT-4B launched successfully |
| The Ariane-5 rocket, with INSAT-4B on board, blasts off from Kourou, French Guiana.
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| INDIA
, 13-March-2007
3:48:13 AM |
| India's latest communications satellite, INSAT-4B, was successfully launched early on Monday by Arianespace's Ariane-5 vehicle from theKourou island in French Guiana.
Co-passenger
The vehicle lifted off at 3.33 a.m. with INSAT-4B and co-passenger Skynet-5A, a military communications satellite of the United Kingdom. About 30 minutes after the lift-off, INSAT-4B was placed in an elliptical geo-synchronous transfer orbit with a perigee of 243 km and an apogee of 35,876 km.
First signals
The Indian Space Research Organisation's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka received the first signals from INSAT-4B at 4.02 a.m. The initial checks indicated that the satellite was in fine fettle. The MCF is tracking, monitoring and controlling the satellite.
G. Madhvan Nair, ISRO Chairman, who was present at Kourou, called the launch "a great occasion."
K.R. Sridharamurthy, Executive Director, Antrix Corporation, commercial arm of the Department of Space, said, "The satellite is in good health. Initial parameters indicate that all its systems are in good condition."
Motor to be fired
In the coming days, it will be nudged into its geo-stationary circular orbit at a height of 36,000 km by the MCF, which will give commands to the liquid apogee motor on board the satellite to fire.
The satellite weighs 3,025 kg and is 15.4 m wide when its solar arrays are fully deployed.
It has 24 high-power transponders, which will boost the direct-to-home television and other communications services.
Mr. Madhavan Nair said, "It is a unique opportunity to have an additional 24 transponders to our fleet of 175 transponders [in other INSATs] serving the national developmental programmes."
ISRO paid around Rs. 210 crore to Arianespace for launching the satellite, which cost Rs. 215 crore to build and has been insured for Rs. 60 crore.
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