GSAT 1 First Orbit Raising Operation Carried out

Multiple orbit raising operations are planned on the GSAT-1 satellite to raise it from its current Geo-synchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) to the Geo-synchronous Orbit (GSO). The first of these orbit raising operations was successfully carried out at 5:53 am IST this morning (April 19, 2001) by firing the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor on board the satellite. The operations were carried out by commanding the satellite from Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka. With this operation, the orbital perigee (closest distance from the earth) of GSAT-1 has been raised to 3000 km. The inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has also been reduced from 19.25 degree at the time of injection to 13.77 degree. Further manoeuvres are planned in the next few days.

It may be recalled that GSAT-1 was launched yesterday (April 18, 2001) by India’s Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-D1, from SHAR Centre, Sriharikota.

The first signal from the satellite, after its injection, was acquired by the ground station at Lake Cowichan in Canada at 5:02 pm IST yesterday, as planned. Immediately, initial operations including health checks, gyro calibration, orientation of satellite’s earth viewing face towards the earth and rehearsals for apogee motor firing were carried out. MCF, Hassan acquired the signals from the satellite at 1:35 am IST, this morning.

The next Apogee raising operation is planned today evening around 9:20 pm IST. The orbit raising manoeuvres will be followed by deployment of solar array, antenna and solar sail. After the satellite reaches its slot at 48 degree East longitude, it will be checked out and used for various experiments like Digital Audio Broadcasting, compressed digital TV signal transmission, etc. It may be noted that GSAT-1 carries onboard two S-band and two C-band transponders.

The satellite is functioning normally.