Bengaluru: In a very disheartening instance for general public as well as the armed forces of the country, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on Saturday lost contact completely with the GSAT-6A +. The Satellite is considered to be the most powerful communication satellite ever launched by India and was reported to have got disconnected with the agency just within the 48 hours of its launch on Thursday. While the space agency claimed that it is putting all its efforts to reconnect with the ill-fated satellite, some well-placed sources said that the failure was actually due to a power system non-functioning.

After the launch of the satellite on Thursday by using GSLV-F08 system, ISRO was successful in completing the first orbit raising operation of GSAT-6A Satellite at about 9.22am on Friday, which made the satellite change its closest and farthest point from earth along with changing its inclination.

The engine, called as LAM ( liquid apogee motor), worked perfectly fine. And after that first orbit raising manoeuvre was also a success and at last the satellite reached the exact targeted spot, according to a source.

The second orbit raising manoeuvre was done as per the schedule of 10.51am on Saturday and a reliable source said that the operation was also completed with a successful firing of the LAM engine. After the launch, the agency was able to receive data from the satellite for about four minutes soon after the second orbit raising operation, after that it went black.

Initial analysis gave the reason that it was due to a power system failure, but Isro has not officially confirmed anything.

The whole Saturday passed in the struggle to communicate with satellite, but later on Sunday, the Space Agency disclosed the fact and said: “The second orbit raising operation of GSAT-6A satellite + has been successfully carried out by LAM Engine firing for about 53 minutes on March 31, 2018 in the morning. After the successful long duration firings, when the satellite was on course to normal operating configuration for the third and the final firing, scheduled for April 1, 2018, communication from the satellite was lost. Efforts are underway to establish the link with the satellite.”

On Saturday, the agency’s new chairman K Sivan held a marathon meeting with all the senior scientists via a teleconference.

After Sivan taking the charge of ISRO, this was the first launch along with the fact that the mission wsa conceived and developed before his time.

GSAT-6A, is a high power communication satellite which was expected to have a mission life of about 10 years. It was to avail the facility of providing mobile communication for India with multi-band coverage facility—five beams in S-band and one beam in C-band.

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