Indian-built European satellite put into orbit

Bangalore: The Indian-built European satellite W2M was successfully placed into geosynchronous transfer orbit on Sunday, about 36,000 kilometres above earth, just after 32 minutes after lift-off on board Ariane-5 from Kourou in French Guiana.

"Radio signals from the commercial satellite were received by the master control facility of ISRO [Indian Space Research Organisation] at Hassan. The spacecraft's health is normal," the space agency said in a statement. Hassan is located about 200 kilometres from Bangalore.

ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair witnessed the launch from the Guiana space centre at Kourou along with a seven-member team of Indian scientists.

"W2M will be finally positioned in the geostationary orbit 16 degrees east from the transfer orbit in the next 12 to 24 hours by repeatedly firing the liquid apogee motor (LAM) on board the spacecraft from MCF," the statement said. The 3,643-kilogramme communication satellite was separated from Ariane-5 after the accompanying Hot Bird 9 broadcasting satellite of Eutelsat was deployed in the same orbital slot of 13 degrees east.

Precious cargo

W2M carries 32 transponders in Ku-band, while Hot Bird has 64 transponders in the same band. The high-power transponders will be used for telecommunications and broadcasting services across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.