INSAT-3A Placed in Intermediate Orbit

In the first critical orbit raising manoeuvre, conducted at 7 am (IST) this morning (April 11, 2003), the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board INSAT-3A was fired for 73 minutes 42 seconds by commanding the satellite from Master Control Facility (MCF), Hassan. With this LAM firing, INSAT-3A perigee (closest point to the earth) has been raised from 860 km at the time of launch to 11,500 km at present. The apogee remains at 36,000 km and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced from 2 deg. at the time of launch to the present 0.9 deg. The orbital period is 14 hours 30 minutes.

It may be recalled that INSAT-3A was launched by Ariane-5 of Arianespace yesterday (April 10, 2003) from Kourou, French Guyana. The satellite had gone out of visibility of MCF, Hassan, at 3.20 pm yesterday and came within its visibility at 2.16 am IST this morning.

All systems on board the satellite are functioning normally. The satellite will go out of MCF visibility again at about 1.44 pm IST this afternoon and come within its visibility at 7 am tomorrow. The second orbit manoeuvre is planned around 1 pm tomorrow (April 12, 2003).