ISRO’s GSAT 30 Successfully Launched Into Orbit
India’s “high power” communication satellite GSAT-30, aimed at providing high-quality television, telecommunications and broadcasting services, was successfully launched onboard Arianne 5 rocket from French Guiana in the early hours of Friday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.
Blasting off from the Arianne Launch Complex in Kourou, a French territory located in northeastern coast of South America at 2:35 am IST, European space consortium Arianespace’s Arianne 5 vehicle injected GSAT-30 into the orbit in a flawless flight lasting about 38 minutes.
The 3,357-kg satellite, which was deployed from the lower passenger position of Ariane-5 launch vehicle (VA 251) into to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), is configured on ISRO’s enhanced I-3K Bus structure to provide communication services from Geostationary orbit in C and Ku bands.
The satellite derives its heritage from ISRO’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series, and is equipped with 12 C and 12 Ku band transponders. GSAT-30 is to serve as replacement to the “aging” INSAT-4A spacecraft services with enhanced coverage, ISRO has said, adding the satellite provides Indian mainland and islands coverage in Ku-band and extended coverage in C-band covering Gulf countries, a large number of Asian countries and Australia.
With a mission life of 15 years, GSAT-30 is an operational communication satellite for DTH, television uplink and VSAT services. The Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO has said the communication payload of GSAT-30 is specifically designed and optimized to maximize the number of transponders on the spacecraft bus.
According to the space agency, the spacecraft would be extensively used for supporting VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) network, television uplinking and teleport services, digital satellite news gathering (DSNG), DTH television services, cellular backhaul connectivity and many such applications. One Ku-band beacon downlink signal is transmitted for ground-tracking purpose.
Since the launch of India’s APPLE experimental satellite on Arianne Flight L03 in 1981, Arianespace has orbited 24 satellites, including GSAT-30, for the Indian space agency.
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