May 10, 2003

In the second orbit raising manoeuvre, conducted at 11:30 (IST) today (May 10, 2003), the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board GSAT-2 was fired for 41 minutes by commanding the satellite from Master Control Facility (MCF), Hassan. With this LAM firing, GSAT-2 perigee (closest point to the earth) has been raised from 8,850 km to 34,000 km. The apogee is 36,000 km and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced from 7.37 deg to the present 0.32 deg. GSAT-2 now has an orbital period of 23 hour, 4 minutes. The satellite will now be in the continuous radio visibility of MCF-Hassan.

GSAT-2 was launched by India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on May 8, 2003 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, SHAR, Sriharikota, and the first orbit raising manoeuvre was carried out from MCF-Hassan yesterday (May 9, 2003). The satellite came within the radio visibility of MCF this morning at 06:17 a.m. (IST) and all the necessary operations like earth acquisition and gyro calibration were carried out before the second orbit raising manoeuvre was started.