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INSAT-2E in geostationery orbit

The last of the second generation INSAT multipurpose satellites, INSAT-2E, was today successfully placed in geostationary orbit by spacecraft controllers at the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Placed at 74 degrees east longitude after the liquid apogee motor was fired for a duration of 219 seconds from 0937 hours, the satellite is now slowly drifting to its final location of 83 degrees east longitude where it would be co-located with INSAT-1D.

It will take a week for the satellite to reach its final home in space, ISRO sources said.

The controllers at ISRO's master control facility at Hassan, Karnataka, had commanded the satellite to its present location after the fourth firing of the 440 Newton thrust LAM which had successfully completed its function.

Even as the drift process was on, MCF scientists would start deploying its two antennas, solar array and solar sail. The deployment of solar array and solar sail, which would provide power to the payloads and subsystems on board the satellite, was planned for tomorrow.

ISRO said all subsystems are functioning normally and the satellite which now within the radio frequency of the MCF was being monitored continuously.

Once the satellite, the most advanced and powerful to be built by ISRO, reaches its destination in space, spacecraft controllers will start checking the communication and weather payloads before it is certified ready for use. The satellite is expected to become operational by the end of this month or early May.

The satellite injected by an Ariane launcher from Kourou in French Guyana on April 3 into a transfer orbit of 250 km perigee (nearest to earth) and 36,155 km apogee (farthest to earth) was moved to the geostationary orbit in four stages as against the planned three stages of firing of the LAM.

On April 4, the intended 70 minute firing of LAM on the first phase could not be realised as the satellite was put into eliptical orbit of 2,000 km by 36,100 km. The LAM developed indigenously by the liquid propulsion centre at Thiruvananthapuram was fired on three more occasions, including the final one to achieve the desired geostationary orbit. The LAM had been fired for nearly two hours to achieve the present orbit.

UNI

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