India’s advanced meteorological satellite, Insat-3D, which will help improve weather predictions, was launched by an Ariane-5 rocket at 1.24am on Friday from the European spaceport in French Guiana.
Thirty-two minutes and 48 seconds into the mission, the spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket and was placed in an elliptical geosynchronous orbit. In a recorded message to a gathering of Indian and European space scientists at Kourou’s Jupiter Control Room, Isro chairman, K Radhakrishnan said that Isro’s master control facility in Karnataka had acquired the signals from Insat-3D. With a lift-off mass of 2,060 kg and a mission life of over seven years, Insat-3D carries four payloads — imager, sounder, data relay transponder and a satellite-aided search and rescue system.
Isro officials said that a unique aspect of the satellite is that the sounder is a new type of equipment that will study the atmosphere. It will be the first geostationary sounder system over the Indian Ocean. Insat-3D will help IMD provide more accurate data for rainfall, thunderstorms and viability conditions for the aviation industry.
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