By IANS,
Bangalore: India Wednesday successfully placed its advanced communication satellite GSAT-8 in the geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km above the Earth, the Indian space agency said.
“The 1,426 kg (dry mass) satellite has been put into the final orbital configuration and is moving towards its final position of 55 degrees east where it will be co-located with INSAT-3E satellite,” state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.
The satellite will spin around the planet every 23 hours, 45 minutes elliptically in an orbit of 35,543 km perigee (closer to earth) and 35,770 km apogee (away from earth).
The space agency’s master control facility (MCF) at Hassan, about 180 km from this tech hub in Karnataka, conducted the satellite’s final orbital exercise.
“The satellite’s solar arrays have been deployed and will track the sun to generate 6,240 watts of power. The spacecraft’s dual grid Ku-band antenna have also been opened and are pointed towards the earth,” the statement said.
The in-orbit testing of the cuboid shaped spacecraft’s payload – 24 Ku-band transponders – will begin June 1 and will be made ready for direct-to-home (DTH) services from July by state-run and private broadcasters after its induction into the Indian satellite (INSAT) system.
The designed in-orbit mission life of the satellite is 12 years.
The testing of its second payload – two-channel global positioning system (GPS) aided geo augmented navigation (Gagan) – will be conducted from the space agency’s navigation control centre in Bangalore.
The Gagan payload provides the satellite-based augmented service through which the accuracy of the positioning information obtained from the GPS satellite of the US is improved by a network of ground based receivers and made available to users in the country through geostationary satellites.
The Rs.260-crore GSAT-8 was launched on board Ariane-V rocket of Arianespace May 21 from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana off the South American coast.