Satellite for better weather forecast launched
28 July 2013 4:55 AM IST
India’s advanced satellite Insat-3D, which was launched early on Friday onboard Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou in French Guiana off the Pacific coast, will improve weather and monsoon forecasting system.
‘After a perfect lift-off at 01:24 am from the European Arianespace spaceport at Kourou, the two-tonne advanced weather satellite was placed in the geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) 32 minutes later, about 36,000 km above from earth,’ the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.
The sophisticated spacecraft is orbiting at perigee (closest to the earth) of 249.9 km and apogee (farthest from the earth) of 35,880 km in the orbit.
‘The satellite’s solar panel was automatically deployed soon after it was separated from the rocket’s upper cryogenic stage and our master control facility at Hassan took over its control for further manoeuvres,’ the ISRO statement said. Hassan is about 200 km from Bangalore.
Preliminary checks of the subsystems showed the health of the spacecraft was satisfactory.
‘After a perfect lift-off at 01:24 am from the European Arianespace spaceport at Kourou, the two-tonne advanced weather satellite was placed in the geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) 32 minutes later, about 36,000 km above from earth,’ the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.
The sophisticated spacecraft is orbiting at perigee (closest to the earth) of 249.9 km and apogee (farthest from the earth) of 35,880 km in the orbit.
‘The satellite’s solar panel was automatically deployed soon after it was separated from the rocket’s upper cryogenic stage and our master control facility at Hassan took over its control for further manoeuvres,’ the ISRO statement said. Hassan is about 200 km from Bangalore.
Preliminary checks of the subsystems showed the health of the spacecraft was satisfactory.
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