Isro’s GSAT-30 successfully launched aboard Ariane 5
1ST 2020 MISSION Satellite will provide communication services to Indian mainland, islands
NEW DELHI: India’s latest communications satellite, GSAT-30, to enhance television, telecommunication and broadcasting services, was successfully launched by the European commercial launcher Arianespace early on Friday. GSAT-30, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) first mission of the year, blasted off on-board Arianespace’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle at 2:35am from the Ariane Launch Complex in Kourou, a French territory in the northeastern coast of South America.
After a flight lasting a little more than 38 minutes, the GSAT-30 separated from the Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
“#GSAT30 successfully separated from the upper stage of #Ariane5 #VA251” Isro tweeted.
Over a few days, the on-board propulsion system will conduct a series of orbit-raising manoeuvres to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit. During the final stages of its orbit-raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be deployed.
Equipped with 12 C and 12 Ku-band transponders, the 3,357-kg satellite has a mission life of 15 years and will join the 19 communication satellites currently operational. Ku-band is a microwave frequency band used for satellite communication and broadcasting, using frequencies of about 12 gigahertz for terrestrial reception and 14 gigahertz for transmission.
GSAT-30 will provide communication services to Indian mainland and islands through Ku-band covering Gulf countries, and a large number of Asian countries and Australia through C-band, Isro chairman K Sivan had said. It will enhance and take over the services of Isro’s ageing communication satellite INSAT 4A, whose official mission life ended in December 2017.
Isro has said GSAT-30 would be extensively used for supporting very small aperture terminal (VSAT) network (a satellite communications system that serves home and business users), television uplinking and teleport services, digital satellite news-gathering (DSNG), DTH television services, cellular backhaul connectivity and many such applications. DTH service providers in the country currently use 42 transponders on indigenous satellites from the INSAT and GSAT series and 69 transponders on foreign satellites.
The Ariane 5 launch vehicle also placed European satellite operator Eutelsat’s Konnect satellite into the orbit for enhanced broadband connectivity.
This was the 24th Indian satellite to be launched by Arianespace. The lift-off mass of the satellite was heavy for Isro’s previous launcher GSLV Mk II, capable of launching 2,500 kg into a geostationary transfer orbit.
However, the recently operationalised GSLV Mk III for the Chandrayaan 2 mission is capable of launching up to 4,000 kg to the geostationary transfer orbit.
Another satellite, GSAT-31, had been launched in February last year to maintain continuity of services of INSAT 4A and INSAT 4CR, whose mission life ended in September 2019.