INSAT-4A was successfully launched by Ariane Flight V169 on December 22, 2005 from Kourou, French Guyana. The launch vehicle placed INSAT-4A in an orbit with a perigee (closest point to the earth) of 622 km and apogee (farthest point to earth) of 36,152 km. Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka acquired the first signals at 4:32 am on December 22nd and conducted initial phase operations on INSAT-4A.

The first critical orbit-raising manoeuvre was conducted at 6:24 am this morning (December 23, 2005) when the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board INSAT-4A was fired for 85 minutes by commanding the satellite from MCF. With this LAM firing, INSAT-4A perigee has been raised to 13,733 km. The apogee is 36,008 km and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced from 4 deg at the time of launch to 0.85 deg now. The orbital period is 15 hours 16 minutes.

All systems on board the satellite are functioning normally. The satellite will go out of MCF visibility at about 1:33 pm and come within its visibility at 7:17 am tomorrow. Further orbit raising maneuvers are planned in the next few days.