INSAT-4CR successfully placed into orbit

SRIHARIKOTA : Beating technical snags, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday successfully actuated its latest communication satellite INSAT-4CR into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, giving a major boost to direct-to-home (DTH) television services.

In a textbook launch, the rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-F04 carrying the satellite took off at 6:21 pm, two hours behind the scheduled launch which was balked for some technical disorder noticed just before three seconds of its launch earlier during the afternoon.

The scientists took about an hour and fourty minutes time to set off the problem and the rocket was cleared for launch at around 6:00 pm.

The launch vehicle with a length of 49-metre soared into the space carrying the 2,130 kg (415 tonnes) satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) at an altitude of 248 kms around 17 minutes after the lift-off.

“It has been an excellent performance of the launch vehicle. There have been a number of critical moments on this happy occasion,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief G Madhavan Nair said here after the successful launch.

INSAT-4CR with 12 transponders is a replacement of its earlier version INSAT-4C that was destroyed on July 10, 2006 when the launch vehicle GSLV-F02 crashed 56 seconds after lift-off due to malfunctioning of a strap-on motor.