Bangalore, April 3 :     India?s most advanced communications satellite Insat-2E was successfully launched into orbit early today from Kourou in French Guyana. In a spectacular lift-off with orange flames and deafening noise, an Ariane rocket zoomed into the sky at 3.33 am (IST). Within 21 minutes, it smoothly injected Insat-2E, the last of the indigenously built Insat-2 series, into its geosynchronous transfer orbit. Now, the 2550-kg satellite, built at a cost of Rs 220 crore, is going around the earth in its elliptical orbit with a perigee (distance closest to earth) of 250 km and an apogee (farthest distance from earth) of 35,936 km. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) headquarters here said the master control facility at Hassan in Karnataka acquired telemitry signal from the satellite in about eight minutes after its injection into the orbit. After carrying out a satellite health-check, scientists at the control facility issued a series of commands to orient the satellite?s face towards earth. The meteorological payload on board Insat-2E includes an improved version of a very high-resolution radiometer and a high-resolution charge coupled device camera. They will be useful in imaging cloud cover, including cyclone formation and its movement, and forecast of rain. ?The outermost panel of the stowed solar array on the south of the satellite was also oriented towards the sun to start generating the electrical power required by the satellite during its transfer-orbit phase,? an Isro release said. Insat-2E is the most advanced of the Insat series in terms of technology used in the mechanical and electronic hardware and state-of-the-art payloads. The communications payload is designed with 17 C-band transponders, of which five operate in lower extended C-band and 12 in normal C-band. One beam covers the whole of India, China, west Asia and southeast Asia and the other extends from central Europe to Australia. Under an agreement between the department of space and Intelsat, 11 36-MHz C-band capacity transponders will be leased to Intelsat for 10 years. Isro is getting ready for the geostationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV) to be commissioned later this year, which will enable the country to become a world player in space technology.