The second experimental satellite (GSAT-2) of the Indian Space Research Organisation has been raised to an altitude of 8,850km in the geo-synchronous transfer orbit on Friday.

ISRO sources told rediff.com in Bangalore that orbit raising operations have been planned in the next few days to raise the 1825kg spacecraft from its current geo-synchronous transfer orbit to the geo-synchronous orbit. The next operation will be carried out on Saturday at 1130 hours IST, the sources added.

It may recalled that the satellite was tracked by the ground station at Biak in Indonesia soon after its separation from the Geo-stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle-D2 on Thursday.

After a visibility gap of 50 minutes, Lake Cowichan Station in Canada acquired the satellite at 18:15 IST as planned. The initial operations, including health checks, gyro calibration and rehearsals for apogee motor firing were carried out.