India Gets First Military Satellite GSAT-7

Sat up to watch this. Real history, given how long the Indian Navy has wanted this. India's first dedicated military satellite was placed into orbit early this morning by the Ariane-5 rocket, launched from Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite will be exclusive for use by the Indian Navy that's so far had to share bandwidth on India's existing space platforms, including the INMARSAT family of satellites.

The GSAT-7 will be activated for operations on September 14 in a geostationary orbit 36,000-km above the equator.

According to ISRO, "GSAT-7 is an advanced communication satellite built by ISRO to provide wide range of service spectrum from low bit rate voice to high bit rate data communication. GSAT-7 Communication payload is designed to provide communication capabilities to users over a wide oceanic region including the Indian land-mass. The payload configuration is compatible with I-2.5K bus of ISRO. The GSAT-7 payload design includes Multiband communication."

Congratulations to the navy, ISRO and the GSAT-7 team!