The 440 Newton thrust Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board INSAT-2E was successfully fired again this afternoon (April 8, I999) at 12.35 pm IST placing the satellite close to its final Geostationary Orbit. The LAM was fired for a duration of 33 minutes.

With this orbit raising manoeuvre operation, conducted from the Master Control Facility at Hassan, the perigee of INSAT-2E has been raised from 14,600 km to about 32,100 km. The apogee is 35,925 km. The inclination of the orbit with respect to the equator has been further brought down from 1.027 degs to 0.15 deg. The orbital period is now about 22 hours 27 minutes. INSAT-2E will henceforth remain within the radio visibility of Hassan continuously.

Further, the last firing of LAM is planned for a short duration on April 10, 1999 with which the satellite will enter into the "drift orbit" to drift slowly towards its final location of 83 deg East longitude where it will be colocated with INSAT-1D. Precise orbit determination is being carried out to determine the requirement of remaining orbit manoeuvre operations.

The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) which was used to raise the orbit of INSAT-2E from the geostastionary transfer orbit in which it was placed by Ariane on April 3, 1999 to the present near geostationary orbit has been so far fired for a total duration of 6540 sec. The LAM has shown excellent performance during all the three firings. This engine has been indigenously designed and developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

All systems on board the satellite are functioning normally.