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 earth) of 622 km and apogee (farthest point to earth) of 36,152 km. The inclination of the orbit with respect to the equator was 4.02 deg. With two orbit raising manoeuvres conducted from Master Control Facility (MCF), Hassan in Karnataka on December 23rd and December 24th, the orbit of INSAT-4A had been raised to 31757 km perigee and 36008 km apogee with the orbital inclination reduced to 0.12 deg.

In the third and final orbit-raising operation conducted at 10 am (IST) today (December 26, 2005), from MCF, Hassan, INSAT-4A has been placed in near-Geosynchronous Orbit. In today's orbit raising manoeuvre, the Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board the satellite was fired for a duration of 5 min 45 secs and the satellite has achieved an orbital period of 23 hours and 54 minutes. After placing INSAT-4A in near-Geosynchronous Orbit, the deployments of solar panels and antennas have been successfully completed. The satellite is presently located at 78.1 deg E and is drifting towards its final orbital position of 83 deg E. The satellite drift will be arrested at 81.5 deg E to carry out in-orbit testing of the payloads.

The satellite had about 1,690 kg of propellant at the time of its launch and 1154 kg of propellant was used for the three orbit raising manoeuvres. 536 kg of propellant is still available in the satellite, which is sufficient for maintaining the satellite orbit and orientation for its designed life of 12 years.

The two solar arrays of INSAT-4A together generate about 5.5 kW of electrical power. The two antennas, which were deployed in orbit today, are used for various transmit and receive functions.