Indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage Successfully Flight Tested On-board GSLV-D5

6 January 2014 

The Indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage was successfully flight-tested onboard GSLV-D5 launch vehicle on January 05, 2014 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. In this successful flight of GSLV-D5, a communication satellite - GSAT-14 - was launched very precisely to its intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.  

 After a smooth countdown of 29 hours, GSLV-D5 lifted off at 1618 hours IST at the opening of the launch window. All the important flight phases, namely, the core stage and strap-on stage propulsion, payload fairing separation, second stage propulsion, cryogenic stage propulsion and spacecraft separation, were executed as planned.  

 After a flight of 17 minutes 5 seconds, GSAT-14 satellite was precisely injected into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit with a Perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 175 km and an Apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 35,945 km with an orbital inclination of 19.3 degree with respect to the equator.  

Immediately after the injection, ISRO's Master Control Facility at Hassan took over the control and commanding of GSAT-14. The solar panels of the satellite were deployed as planned, the satellite health was found normal and the satellite was oriented towards the Sun. The first orbit raising operation of GSAT-14 is planned at 0758 hrs IST on January 6, 2014. The remaining two orbit raising operations are planned on January 7 and 9, 2014 to place the satellite in geostationary orbit.