India's maiden dedicated defence satellite was launched by an European rocket early today, giving a boost to Navy's modernisation push to improve space-based communications and intelligence gathering over a wide oceanic region including the country's landmass.
Custom-made for the Navy by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the advanced multi-band, state-of-the-art GSAT-7 was successfully lofted into space by European space consortium Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket at 2 AM from Kourou spaceport, French Guiana, in South America.
In an impressive launch, telecast live by Doordarshan, Ariane 5 precisely placed the Rs 185-crore home-built communication spacecraft into the intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) after a flight of 34 minutes 25 seconds duration.
"As planned, ISRO's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka started acquiring the signals five minutes prior to the separation of GSAT-7 from Ariane-5 launch vehicle. The solar panels of the satellite have been deployed and they are generating power. Initial checks have indicated normal health of the satellite," the Bangalore-headquartered ISRO said.
Expected to be operational by September-end, the country's first exclusive satellite for military applications, would give a major push to the maritime security.
According to ISRO, GSAT-7 would provide wide range of service spectrum from low bit rate voice to high bit rate data communication. Its payload is designed to provide communication capabilities to users over a wide oceanic region including the Indian land-mass.
