Bangalore, April 9
The multi-purpose Indian national satellite INSAT-3A will be launched into space by Ariane 5G in the early hours tomorrow after a day’s postponement due to an anomaly in a transmitter of the satellite.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced this evening that the launch would take place between 4.19 am and 5 am IST tomorrow.
The satellite was cleared for launch after extensive simulations and careful analysis of the anomaly by ISRO experts both at the European spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana and in India.
Indian space agency ISRO said the launch was called off after observing that the signal strength from one of the two telemetry transmitters was “less than nominal” during the final checks on the satellite, scheduled for launch between 04.19 am and 05.00 am IST on board the European rocket Ariane-5.
“It should have been upto a certain mark. It was not at the expected level”, an ISRO spokesman said soon after the calling off of the launch of the 2,958-kg satellite, which was to have been injected into space along with Galaxy XII for the US telecom operator PanAmSat.
A top ISRO team, including Chairman K. Kasturirangan, ISRO Satellite Centre Director P.S. Goel and the INSAT-3A team led by its Project Director R.K. Rajangam, are in Kourou. “The problem is being analysed”, the spokesman said.
ISRO, which had designed and built the satellite with a mission life of 12 years, said the anomaly could not be resolved before the close of the “launch window” and hence the launch was called off for the day.
The anomaly was observed mid-way through the 11-and-a-half-hour final countdown, ISRO sources said. The revised launch date would be announced soon.
PTI, UNI
