Article Posted on : - Sep 20, 2013

European rocket Ariane 5 had launched the GSAT-7 from French Guiana on August 30. An Arianespace photo

CHENNAI (PTI): The transponders of India's first exclusive defence satellite GSAT-7 have been successfully switched on and their performance was found "normal", according to ISRO.

"All 11 communication transponders (operating in UHF, S, C and Ku-bands) of India's advanced multiband communication satellite GSAT-7 have been successfully switched on and their performance is found to be normal," ISRO said in a statement on Thursday.

The defence satellite GSAT-7 was successfully launched by European space consortium Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana last month.

"GSAT-7 is now positioned at its designated orbital slot of 74 deg East longitude in the geostationary orbit and In Orbit Testing (IOT) of the 11 transponders is in progress," it said.

GSAT-7 is an advanced communication satellite to provide wide range of service spectrum from low bit rate voice to high bit rate data communication.

Its payload is designed to provide communication capabilities to users over a wide oceanic region including the Indian land-mass.