INSAT-3A, a multipurpose satellite built by ISRO was launched by Ariane in April 2003. It is located at 93.5 degree East longitude.It is third satellite in INSAT-3 series after INSAT-3B

INSAT-3B

INSAT-3B is an Indian communications satellite which was built and is operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation.- Overview :INSAT – 3B is the first of the five ISRO built satellites under INSAT – 3 series to join INSAT system.It is based on the I-2000 satellite bus...

 & INSAT-3C

INSAT-3C

INSAT-3C is a multipurpose satellite built by ISRO and launched by Arianespace in Jan 2002. INSAT-3C is the second satellite of the INSAT-3 series...

.Built at a cost of $53 mn, it will provide communication,weather and search & rescue services.

Launch

INSAT 3A was launched by Ariane-5 launch vehicle of Arianespace

Arianespace

Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial space transportation company. It undertakes the production, operation, and marketing of the Ariane 5 rocket launcher as part of the Ariane programme....

 on April 10, 2003 at 4.22 am IST from Kourou

Kourou

Kourou is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America.Kourou is the location of the Guiana Space Centre, France and ESA's main spaceport.-Geography:...

, French Guyana.It was placed into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO), 30 minutes after the lift-off in 3-axis stabilized mode, with a perigee

Perigee

Perigee is the point at which an object makes its closest approach to the Earth.. Often the term is used in a broader sense to define the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. The opposite is the apogee, the farthest or highest point.The Greek prefix "peri"...

 (nearest point to earth) of 859 km and an apogee (farthest point to earth) of 36,055 km and an inclination of 1.99 deg. with respect to the equator. Its co-passenger on its launch was GALAXI-XII of PanAmSat

PanAmSat

The former PanAmSat Corporation founded in 1984 by Reynold Anselmo, was a satellite service provider headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. It operated a fleet of communications satellites used by the entertainment industry, news agencies, internet service providers, government agencies, and...

.Its Master Control Facility(MCF) is located at Hassan,Karnataka(India).
It is 3 – axis body stabilised in orbit using momentum and reaction wheels, solar flaps, magnetic torquers

Magnetorquer

In satellite systems, a magnetorquer or magnetic torquer is a system for attitude control, detumbling and stabilization built from electromagnetic coils...

 and eight 10 N and eight 22 N reaction control thrusters.
Its propulsion system consists of 440 N Liquid Apogee Motor

Apogee kick motor

An apogee kick motor refers to a rocket motor that is regularly employed on artificial satellites destined for a geostationary orbit. As the vast majority of geostationary satellite launches are carried out from spaceports at a significant distance away from Earth's equator, the carrier rocket...

 MON-3 (Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen)

Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen

Mixed oxides of nitrogen are solutions of nitric oxide in dinitrogen tetroxide/nitrogen dioxide . It may be used as an oxidizing agent in rocket propulsion systems. A broad range of compositions is available, and can be denoted as MONi, where i represents the percentage of nitric oxide in the...

 and MMH (MonoMethylHydrazine)

Monomethylhydrazine

Monomethylhydrazine is a volatile hydrazine chemical with the chemical formula CH3 NH2. It is used as a rocket propellant in bipropellant rocket engines because it is hypergolic with various oxidizers such as nitrogen tetroxide and nitric acid...

 for orbit raising.

Communication Payload

• 12 Normal C-band transponders (9 channels provide expanded coverage from Middle East to South East Asia with an EIRP of 38 dBW, 3 channels provide India coverage with an EIRP of 36 dBW and 6 Extended C-band transponders provide India coverage with an EIRP of 36 dBW).

• 6 upper extended C-band transponders having India beam coverage providing an EoC-EIRP of 37 dBW.

• 6 Ku-band transponders provide India coverage with EIRP of 48 dBW.

Meteorological Payload

• A Very High Resolution Radiometer (VHRR) with imaging capacity in the visible (0.55-0.75 µm), thermal infrared (10.5-12.5 µm) and Water Vapour (5.7-7.1 µm) channels, provide 2x2 km, 8x8 km and 8x8 km ground resolutions respectively.

• A CCD
  Charge-coupled device
  A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time...
  
   camera provides 1x1 km ground resolution, in the visible (0.63-0.69 µm), near infrared (0.77-0.86 µm) and shortwave infrared (1.55-1.70 µm) bands.

• A Data Relay Transponder (DRT) having global receive coverage with a 400 MHz uplink and 4500 MHz downlink for relay of meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic data from unattended land and ocean-based automatic data collection-cum-transmission platforms.

• A Satellite Aided Search and Rescue (SAS&R) SARP payload having global receive coverage with 406 MHz uplink and 4500 MHz downlink with India coverage, for relay of signals from distress beacons in sea, air or land. See also Cospas-Sarsat
  Cospas-Sarsat
  Cospas-Sarsat is an international satellite-based search and rescue distress alert detection and information distribution system, established by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979. It is best known as the system that detects and locates emergency beacons...
  
  .

Services

• Telecommunications
• Television broadcasting
• Meteorological
• Search and Rescue services

External links

• ISRO website
• Commercial arm of ISRO
• Deptt. of Space Under Deptt. Of Science & Tech., Government Of India