GSAT-2 Placed in Geostationary Orbit – Solar Arrays and Antenna Deployed

In a series of critical operations carried out by commanding from Master Control Facility (MCF), Hassan, yesterday (May 11, 2003) and today (May 12, 2003), ISRO’s latest satellite, GSAT-2, has been successfully placed in geostationary orbit and its Solar Arrays and Antenna have been deployed.

In the third and final phase of orbit raising operations conducted yesterday (May 11, 2003) at 10:50 a.m. IST, GSAT-2 was successfully placed in geostationary orbit by firing its 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) for 79 seconds. The satellite is now located at 36 degree East longitude and drifting slowly, as per plan, towards its final slot of 48 degree East longitude. It is expected to reach its final orbital slot in a week’s time.

The Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) was fired for a total duration of 90 minutes 6 seconds in three phases on May 9, 10 and 11, imparting a total velocity increment of 1.66 kilometer per second needed to take the satellite from geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) of 180 kilometer perigee and 36,000 kilometer apogee to its present geostationary orbit (GSO). The inclination was also reduced from 19.2 degree with respect to the equatorial plane at the time of its injection into the orbit, to the present 0.1 degree. The LAM, which was developed by ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, has performed to its specifications.

In a series of operations conducted today (May 12, 2003), the two Solar Arrays and the West Antenna of GSAT-2 were successfully deployed. In the first operation conducted at 9:26 a.m., the Solar Array on the south side of the satellite was deployed. The solar array on the north side was deployed at 10:30 a.m. followed by the deployment of West Antenna at 11:15 a.m. The two solar arrays together generate 1400 Watt of electrical power.

It may be recalled that GSAT-2 was launched by India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D2) on May 8, 2003 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota. The satellite carries four C-band transponders, two Ku-band transponders and one Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) payload in addition to four scientific payloads. Functional testing of scientific payloads and the in-orbit testing of the communication payloads will be carried out in the next two weeks.

All systems on board GSAT-2 satellite are functioning well.