(13 March 2007 3:15 pm)

MUMBAI: Its all systems go on board Insat-4B, which was successfully launched early yesterday from Kourou, French Guiana, having now been placed in an intermediate orbit.

The first critical orbit-raising manoeuvre on the satellite was successfully conducted at 5:35 am this morning with the firing of the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (Lam) on board for 93 minutes by commanding the satellite from Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.

With this Lam operation, Insat-4B perigee has been raised to 14,244 km. The apogee is at 35,752 km and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced from 4.5 deg at the time of entering into orbit to its present 1.15 deg. The present orbital period is 15 hours 21 minutes.

All systems on board the satellite are functioning normally. The satellite went out of MCF radio visibility at 12:02 pm this afternoon. It will again come within MCF’s radio visibility at 6:11 am tomorrow. Further orbit raising maneuvers are planned over the next few days.

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