India's GSAT-30 satellite successfully launched from French Guiana

India early Friday launched a communication satellite called GSAT-30 from French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America, aiming to use the space device to improve broadcasting and connectivity in the country.

European space consortium Arianespace's Ariane 5 VA-251 rocket lifted off from Kourou, the launch base, at 2:35 am IST to carry GSAT-30 for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Eutelsat Konnect satellite for the French telecommunications company Eutelsat.

After a flight lasting 38 minutes 25 seconds, GSAT-30 separated from Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. 

“The satellite will provide communication services to Indian mainland and islands through Ku-band and wide coverage covering Gulf countries, a large number of Asian countries and Australia through C-band,” said ISRO chairman K Sivan in a statement. 

“GSAT-30 will provide DTH Television Services, connectivity to VSATs for ATM, Stock-exchange, television uplinking and Teleport Services, Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) and e-governance applications. 

ISRO’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka took over the command and control of GSAT-30 immediately after its separation from the launch vehicle. Preliminary health checks of the satellite revealed its normal health. 

In the days ahead, orbit-raising manoeuvres will be performed to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) by using its on-board propulsion system.

During the final stages of its orbit raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be deployed. Following this, the satellite will be put in its final orbital configuration. The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.