EDUSAT First Orbit Raising Operation Carried Out

The first orbit raising manoeuvre of ISRO’s latest satellite, EDUSAT was
successfully carried out by firing the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor on
board the satellite for a duration of 49 minutes 56 seconds at 07:48 am this
morning (September 21, 2004) by commanding the satellite from Master Control
Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka. With this operation, the perigee
(nearest point to earth) of EDUSAT has been raised from 181 km at the time
of its injection orbit to 8800 km. The apogee (the farthest point to earth)
height remains at 36,000 km. The inclination of the orbit with respect to
the equatorial plane has been reduced from 19.33 deg at the time of
injection into orbit to 7.15 deg now. The satellite is now orbiting the
earth once every 13 hour 25 minutes.

It may be recalled that EDUSAT was successfully launched into Geosynchronous
Transfer Orbit by the first operational flight of ISRO’s Geosynchronous
Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F01) yesterday (September 20, 2004) from
Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.

The signals from EDUSAT were acquired at Biak in Indonesia, 40 seconds
before its separation from launch vehicle. The solar panel of the satellite
was deployed soon after its injection into orbit, which was confirmed by
Biak station. Lake Cowichan (Canada) acquired the signal at 17:20 hours IST
yesterday, and MCF Hassan acquired the satellite signal at 03:09 am IST this
morning as per prediction. Ground stations at Lake Cowichan (Canada), Fucino
(Italy) and Beijing (China) are supporting MCF in monitoring the health of
the satellite and its orbit raising operations.

The next orbit raising manoeuvre is planned on September 22, 2004 around
10:30 am. All systems on board the satellite are functioning normally.