Article Posted on : - Dec 01, 2010

HYLAS (Highly Adaptable Satellite). A file photo

BANGALORE (PTI): HYLAS (Highly Adaptable Satellite), which was launched successfully on November 27 by the European Ariane-5 V198 launch vehicle from French Guyana, has reached geostationary orbit.

"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," an ISRO release said.

One of its communication antennas has also been deployed successfully.

HYLAS, jointly built by ISRO/Antrix and EADS/Astrium of Europe for Advent communications of UK, was initially injected into an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit with a perigee of 250 km, apogee of 35,906 km and inclination of 1.99 Degree.

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 of 32 Newton thrust level in three phases on November 28 (for 1 hour 19 minutes) and on Nov 29 (for 30 minutes) and today (for about 4 minutes), it said.