Nothing Could Be Finer Than A Launch In… Sriharikota

Yet another successful launch… the birds are truly flying well of late. INSAT-4CR was inserted into orbit by the GLSV-FO4 with a lift-off occurring from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota at 6:21 p.m. on Sunday, September 2nd. Packing 12 Ku-band transponders, the satellite was injected into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) of 170 km perigee and 35,975 km apogee with an orbital inclination of 21.7 degrees with respect to the equator about 17.55 minutes after lift-off. This success was a great boost to the scientists involved for, as you may recall, last year the SGLV-FO2 carrying INSAT-4C had to be discarded as the vehicle departed from its designated path due to a sudden loss of thrust in one of the four liquid propellant strap-on motors.



INSAT-4CR is the third in the INSAT-4 series and follows successful launches in December of 2005 and March of 2007. A solar array provides 2870 W of power via two, 70 Ampere-hour Nickel-Hydrogen batteries. INSAT-4CR will be co-located with the INSAT-4C, KALPANA-1 and EDUSAT at 74 degree East Longitude. The satellite will boost DTH television services, Digital News Gathering Service (DNGS), VSAT and other high bit rate data transmission throughout India. The mission has a life expectancy of ten years—Sriharikota, India