Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CMS-01
Mains level: Not Much
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed into a transfer orbit India’s 42nd communications satellite, CMS-01, carried onboard the PSLV-C50.
CMS-01
- It is a communications satellite envisaged for providing services in extended C Band of the frequency spectrum and its coverage will include the Indian mainland and the Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands, the ISRO.
- The satellite is expected to have a life of over seven years.
- It was injected precisely into its pre-defined sub- geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
- CMS-01 is considered to be a replacement of the aged satellite GSAT-12. It provides services like tele-education, tele-medicine, disaster management support and Satellite Internet access.
What is GTO?
- A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit.
- Satellites which are destined for geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into a GTO as an intermediate step for reaching their final orbit.
- A GTO is highly elliptic.
- Its perigee (closest point to Earth) is typically as high as low Earth orbit (LEO), while its apogee (furthest point from Earth) is as high as geostationary (or equally, a geosynchronous) orbit.
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