Bangalore: India's heaviest communication satellite with 30 communication transponders was launched successfully early Saturday by an Ariane-5 rocket from French Guiana in South America, ISRO said.

The GSAT-10 satellite weighting 3,400 kg and India's 101st space mission "is in good health" and would be operational by November, the Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.

"GSAT-10 satellite has 30 communication transponders - 12 in Ku-band, 12 in C-band and 6 in extended C-band. Besides, it has a navigation payload "GAGAN" that would provide GPS signals of improved accuracy (of better than 7 meters) to be used by the Airports Authority of India for civil aviation requirements," the statement said.

GAGAN stands for GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation.

The satellite was placed in an elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit half an hour after liftoff at 0248 hours Saturday.

"Preliminary health checks on the various subsystems of the satellite-power, thermal, command, sensors,controls" by ISRO's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan, about 180 km from Bangalore, showed "all the parameters were satisfactory", the statement said.

Over the next five days, orbit raising maneuvers would be performed to place the satellite in the Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator), it said.

GSAT-10 is expected to have operational life of 15 years, the statement said.