MUMBAI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has further raised the orbit of its recently launched communications satellite Insat-4B.

In the second orbit raising manoeuvre conducted at 12:47 [IST] yesterday (14 March), the Liquid Apogee Motor (Lam) on board Insat-4B was fired for 41 minutes by commanding the satellite from Master Control Facility (MCF), Hassan.

With this LAM firing, Insat-4B perigee (closest point to earth) has been raised to 32,878 km. The apogee (farthest point to earth) height remains at 35,736 km. The inclination of orbit with respect to the equatorial plane has been reduced to 0.19 deg. Insat-4B now has an orbital period of 22 hours 41 minutes.

The satellite will now be in the continuous radio visibility of MCF-Hassan.

Insat-4B was launched by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle on 12 March from Kourou, French Guiana.

Insat-4B came within the radio visibility of MCF yesterday morning at 06:13 am (IST) and all the necessary operations like earth acquisition and gyro calibration were carried out before the second orbit raising manoeuvre was started.

The next orbit manoeuvre to place Insat-4B in near Geosynchronous Orbit is planned on 16 March. Deployment of the two solar panels and the two antennas will be carried out subsequently.