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GSAT-2 Placed in Geostationary Orbit
Solar Arrays and Antenna Deployed
May 12, 2003

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.

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