INSAT 3E is a defunct

communication satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...

built by Indian Space Research Organisation. It was launched on September 28, 2003, from the European Space Agency's spaceport in

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

on board the

Ariane rocket Ariane is a series of European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne. France first proposed the Ariane project and it was officially agreed upon at ...

. The satellite had a launch mass of 2750 kilograms. It is the 4th satellite launched in the INSAT-3 series for

INSAT The Indian National Satellite System or INSAT, is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites launched by ISRO to satisfy the telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, and search and rescue operations. Commissioned in 1983, INSAT i ...

. It was designed for providing high-speed communication,

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

VSAT A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s up to 1 ...

& Tele-education services and was an important landmark in Indian Space Programme. In April 2014, almost eleven years after being launched, the satellite ran out of oxidizer and a few days later, was decommissioned by the ISRO. In a few days time, it will be moved to a graveyard orbit.

Launch

INSAT 3E was launched from

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...

, French Guiana on September 28, 2003, on European consortium Ariane space's Ariane 5-V162 launcher along with two other satellites viz. Eurobird 3 of Eutelsat and SMART-1 of European Space Agency at 4.44 am IST.It was placed into a geosynchronous transfer orbit 30 minutes after the lift-off, in 3-axis stabilised mode, with a perigee of 649 km and an apogee of 35,923 km and an inclination of 7 deg. with respect to the equator. Its master control facility is at Hassan, Karnataka (India).

Payload

INSAT 3E payload consists of C-band and extended C-band transponders. It has 24 C-band transponders, having India beam coverage providing an Edge Of Coverage-

Effective Isotropic Radiated Power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...

(EOC-EIRP) of 38.5 dBW and 12 upper extended C-band transponders having India beam coverage providing an EOC-EIRP of 38 dBW.

Retirement

On April 1, 2014, Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, while speaking to the Indian English newspaper "

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

", said that INSAT 3E had been decommissioned. The newspaper reported that a few days before, the satellite had run out of the on-board oxidiser, which is essential to burn the fuel that kept it Earth-locked (fixed over India) and running its daily functions. The ISRO had apparently expected that the satellite, positioned at 55 degrees E longitude, would last a few more months and that it would be smoothly replaced with GSAT-16. The Master Control Facility at Hassan is due to move the expired satellite into a

graveyard orbit A graveyard orbit, also called a junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an orbit that lies away from common operational orbits. One significant graveyard orbit is a supersynchronous orbit well beyond geosynchronous orbit. Some satellites are moved into ...

Services

* Television * VSAT * Communication * Tele-education providing education to the poor and needy * Tele-medicine administering medical services from the metros to villages & remote areas

References

External links

ISRO website

Commercial arm of ISRO

{{DEFAULTSORT:Insat-3e Spacecraft launched in 2003 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellite Internet access Satellite television INSAT satellites 2003 in India