SRO's commercial Communication Satellite launched

A state of the art communication satellite, W2M, built by ISRO on a commercial basis in partnership with EADS-Astrium of Europe, was successfully launched on Sunday at 0405 hrs (IST) by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle. The launch took place from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana. 32 minutes after its lift-off, W2M separated from Ariane-5, after reaching its intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). Radio signals transmitted by W2M were successfully received by ISRO’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka and the satellite’s health is normal More

(Source: The Hindu - Dec 22)