Bangalore: The first orbit raising manoeuvre of India's dedicated educational satellite, EDUSAT, was successfully carried out today (Sep 21, 2004) by commanding the satellite from the Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.

The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor on board the satellite, launched by GSLV-FO1 from Sriharikota yesterday (Sep 20, 2004), was fired for 49 minutes and 56 seconds to raise its orbit, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement in Bangalore.

With this operation, the perigee (nearest point to earth) of EDUSAT has been raised from 181 km at the time of injection orbit to 8800 km, it said. The apogee (the farthest point to earth) height remains at 36,000 km.

The satellite is now orbiting the earth once every 13 hour and 25 minutes.

EDUSAT was shot into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by the first operational flight of ISRO's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Shar, at Sriharikota in the Andhra Pradesh coast.

Ground stations at Lake Cowichan (Canada), Fucion (Italy) and Beijing (China) are supporting the MCF in monitoring the health of the satellite and its orbit raising operations.

The next orbit-raising manoeuvre is planned on Sep 22, 2004 the statement said, adding, all systems on board EDUSAT are functioning normally.