HYLAS satellite reaches geostationary orbit

HYLAS (Highly Adaptable Satellite), which was launched successfully on November 27, by the European Ariane-5 V198 launch vehicle, has reached the geostationary orbit, said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday.

It may be recalled that the HYLAS, the satellite jointly built by ISRO/Antrix and EADS/Astrium of Europe for Advent communications of U.K. was initially injected into an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) with a perigee of 250 km, apogee of 35,906 km and inclination of 1.99?.

ISRO?s Master Control Facility at Hassan immediately took over the control and command operations of the satellite.

The perigee was raised from 250 km to 35,521 km by firing the satellite’s Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) of 432 Newton thrust level in three phases on Nov 28 (for 1 hour 19 minutes), on Nov 29 (for 30 minutes) and Nov 30 (for about 4 minutes).

The HYLAS Satellite, presently in an orbit of 35,521 km (perigee) x 35,800 km (apogee) is in good health and in continuous radio-visibility from Hassan. One of its communication antennas has also been deployed successfully.