Bangalore, Sept 30: (pti) in the second orbit-raising manoeuvre, conducted this afternoon, the 440 newton liquid apogee motor (lam) on board Insat-3e was fired for 36 minutes by commanding the satellite from master control facility at Hassan in Karnataka. With this lam firing, insat-3e perigee (closest point to the Earth) has been raised from 14,960 km to 33,000 km, Indian Space Research Organisation said in a statement.

The apogee (farthest point to earth) is at 35,750 km and the inclination of the orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced from 1.9 deg. To the present 0.14 deg., it said.

Insat-3e now has an orbital period of 22 hour, 40 minutes, ISRO said, adding, the satellite will now be in the continuous radio visibility of MCF.

"All systems on board insat-3e are functioning normally. The third apogee motor firing is planned in the next few days,” the space agency said.

Insat-3e was launched by ariane-5 of Arianespace on September 28 from Kourou in French Guyana, and the first orbit-raising manoeuvre was carried out from MCF yesterday.
ISRO said that the satellite came within the radio visibility of MCF this morning at 8.41 am IST, and all the necessary operations like earth acquisition and gyro calibration were carried out before the second orbit-raising manoeuvre was started.

Bureau Report