•  India's heaviest satellite GSAT-11 was successfully launched from Kourou, a French territory located along the north eastern coast of South America with the help of n the Ariane-5 vehicle.

About GSAT 11:

• GSAT-11 is the third in a series of four satellites aimed at achieving the government's ambitious target to provide high data connectivity of 100 GBPS in the country under the Digital India Mission.
• GSAT-11 is a next generation "high throughput" communication satellite configured around ISRO's I-6K Bus, and its designed lifetime is more than 15 years.
• The satellite will be initially placed in the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit and later, raised to the Geostationary Orbit by firing the on-board Liquid Apogee Motor.
• The GSAT-11 is the fore-runner in a series of advanced communications satellites with multi-spot beam antenna coverage over Indian mainland and islands.
• The satellite will play a vital role in providing broadband services across the country and be a platform to demonstrate new generation applications.
• GSAT-11 would provide high data connectivity to users across India, broadband connectivity to gram panchayats under the Bharath Net project and support high data rate applications for enterprise network and consumer broadband applications.
• Since the launch of India's APPLE experimental satellite on Ariane Flight L03 in 1981, it has orbited 22 satellites under contracts with the Indian space agency, Arianespace said, adding that two more satellites, GSAT-31 and GSAT-30 .

GSAT 11: How does it work?

• GSAT-11 will use a ‘multi-spot’ approach to maximize its coverage area in the Indian mainland and islands — a far superior communication technology than existing INSATs and GSATs.
• In a first for a satellite built by ISRO, GSAT-11 will carry a next-generation I-6K bus (communication satellite hub) to provide services in two widely-used wavelengths for telecommunications: the Ku- and Ka-bands. This makes GSAT-11 three to six times more powerful than any of ISRO’s (and India’s) satellite roster today.
• It will provide up to 14 Gigabit/s in both voice and video broadband services anywhere in the Indian mainland or islands over its 15-year lifespan, according to ISRO.
• The satellite has 32 Ku-band transponders and 8 Ka-band hubs on board. The Ku- and Ka-bands are different frequencies of microwaves in the electromagnetic spectrum.