India’s Heaviest Satellite GSAT-11 Launched Successfully From French Guiana

GSAT-11, weighing 5,854 kg, is ISRO’s heaviest and most-advanced high throughput communication satellite.The next generation satellite is going to help ramp up internet speeds. 

BENGALURU: India’s heaviest communication satellite GSAT-11 has been successfully launched into orbit a few minutes past 2 am IST on Wednesday.

After a 30-minute flight, GSAT-11 separated from the Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.

GSAT-11 is a large planned Indian geostationary communications satellite.GSAT-11 is India’s heaviest satellite.ISRO Chairman K Sivan said soon after the launch, describing the GSAT-11 as the “richest space asset” for India.

ISRO has its own launch vehicles, but has consistently relied on Arianespace to orbit satellites too heavy for the agency’s own launchers.

Arianespace confirmed a successful launch this evening after an on-target separation of the GSAT 11 and GEO-Kompsat 2A satellites for India and South Korea.

The launch site was the Ariane Launch Complex at Kourou, a French territory located along the northeastern coast of South America.

The space agency described GSAT-11 as a “forerunner in the series of advanced communication satellites with multi-spot beam antenna coverage” over the mainland and islands.

The satellite will play a vital role in providing broadband services across the country and also be a platform to demonstrate new generation applications, the ISRO said. Currently, India has nearly 450 million internet users.

GSAT-11 is a next-generation high throughput communication satellite configured around Isro’s I-6K Bus, and its designed lifetime is more than 15 years.

GSAT-11 satellite is designed to boost the reach, speeds and capacity in India’s commercial telecom sector.GSAT-11 is expected to bring far greater speeds (16 Gbps of it, no less) to meet the growing data demands of Indian telecom subscribers.

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