Soraya Bittencourt at the Space Control Center in Guaratiba

Engineer Ricardo Santos explains the rocket trajectory which deploy the satellite

The team commands the several maneuvers at space from Pedra de Guaratiba Station

Command to Space

Exactly at 12:34h, when dozens of Brazilian and Canadian technicians were accompanying the trajectory of the Arianne rocket, from the Control Center at Pedra de Guaratiba (Rio de Janeiro), the operator Soraya Bittencourt commanded, with total exit, the firing of the "Apogee" motor, which placed the Brasilsat at a distance of approximately 36 thousand kilometers from the Earth. The team joyously celebrated the success of the operation, but only from Tuesday on the Satellite will be definitely stabilized.

BRASILSAT, ALREADY IN ORBIT WILL BE OPERATING ONLY ON APRIL 1ST

The firing of the Apogee motor, which freed the Brasilsat satellite from Arianne II rocket occurred yesterday exactly at 12:34h, at a distance of approximately 36,000 kilometers form Earth. From this moment on the Satellite left its internal transfer orbit and entered the circular unfolding orbit, around the world.

It was the operator Soraya Bittencourt, from the Embratel Control Center, at Pedra de Guaratiba in Rio de Janeiro, who commanded the starting of the motor, supplied with half a ton of solid fuel.

MANEUVERS

Yesterday morning, the 54 Brazilian experts, as well as the 52 Canadian and American ones who worked in the Brasilsat project could not hide their joy with the success of the text. - Up to now, everything is going well, said Eng. Ricardo Santos, when explaining the work that was being done in the Satellite Control Center. At that moment, all the attention of the experts were turned to the small maneuvers that were indicating, from 12:34h, how to define the final positioning of Brasilsat. The operation will possibly continue until around 15h of today, when the Satellite will reach its final position, that is at 65% West of Longitude above the São Gabriel da Cachoeira village in the Amazon region.

MONDAY

Tomorrow, with Brasilsat already in the definite position, its antenna will be lifted, and the external solar panel will be lowered and, in face of the coupling, it will have only 7 meters of height. As of this Tuesday, it will be definitely stabilized and, on April 10th will start working commercially, when the Intelsat functions will be terminated, and this will mean an economy of about US$7 million/year. Intelsat will be operating only for international telecommunications.

STATIONS

As explained by Eng Ricardo Santos, with the installation of Brasilsat, EMBRATEL is already thinking about the installation of mobile stations in several regions of the country, 90% of the material to be used being of national production. These stations will be similar to the one already in operation at the Fernando de Noronha Island and the other 21 in the Amazon Region. The Brasilsat satellite has 24 bridges and each one sends a TV signal or up to 1,300 simultaneous telephone channels.