ISRO General News and Updates

[Indx TechStyle]

Arianespace Flight VA246– GSAT-11 and GEO-KOMPSAT-2A (EN)

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Dec 05, 2018
India’s heaviest communication satellite GSAT-11 launched successfully from French Guiana

Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) heaviest and most-advanced high throughput communication satellite GSAT-11 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours today.

The launch vehicle Ariane 5 VA-246 lifted off from Kourou Launch Base, French Guiana at 02:07 am (IST) carrying India’s GSAT-11 and South Korea’s GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellites, as scheduled. Ariane 5 is one of three launch vehicles operated by Arianespace along with Soyuz and Vega.

After a 30-min flight, GSAT-11 separated from the Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. The achieved orbit was very close to the intended one.

The 5854-kg GSAT-11 will provide high data rate connectivity to users of Indian mainland and islands through 32 user beams in Ku-band and 8 hub beams in Ka-band.

“GSAT-11 will boost the broadband connectivity to rural and inaccessible Gram Panchayats in the country coming under the Bharat Net Project, which is part of Digital India Programme,” ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan said.

The Bharat Net Project aims to enhance the public welfare schemes like e-banking, e-health, e-governance among others.

He said GSAT-11 will act as a forerunner to all future high throughput communication satellites. “Today’s successful mission has boosted the confidence of the entire team,” Dr Sivan added.

Post-separation, ISRO's Master Control Facility at Hassan in Karnataka took over the command and control of GSAT-11 and found its health parameters normal.

The scientists will undertake phase-wise orbit-raising manoeuvres in the days ahead to place the satellite in the Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) using its on-board propulsion systems. GSAT-11 will be positioned at 74-degree east longitude in the geostationary orbit.

Subsequently, the two solar arrays and four antenna reflectors of GSAT-11 will be deployed in orbit. The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.

In the last 21 days, ISRO successfully completed three satellite and two launch vehicle missions.

Read More...

 

[Chinmoy]

SpaceX launches India's first privately-built satellite ExceedSAT 1

Whats the news of our TeamIndus? What are they up to now a days?

TeamIndus part of syndicate shortlisted by NASA to potentially fly cargo to Moon

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/s...ide-to-the-moon-with-nasa/article25643536.ece

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Whats the news of our TeamIndus? What are they up to now a days?

TeamIndus part of syndicate shortlisted by NASA to potentially fly cargo to Moon

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/s...ide-to-the-moon-with-nasa/article25643536.ece

GLXP ended without any winner. Although, they're still working on it and will get it on Moon for sure.

Two new private Indian launch companies, Bellatrix Aerospace and Agnikul. Not any rocket materialised at least till now.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Dec 07, 2018
Glimpse of HyperSpectral Data Captured by HySIS

Hyperspectral Cubes of different terrain conditions and sample spectral plots, depicting different features

 

[kurup]

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[Indx TechStyle]

Dec 08, 2018
Orbit raising manoeuvres have been performed on GSAT-11

After the successful launch of GSAT-11 into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by Ariane 5 VA246 vehicle on December 05, 2018, three orbit raising manoeuvres have been performed by firing the satellite’s onboard propulsion system for a cumulative duration of more than four hours. Consequently, the orbit of GSAT-11 with a perigee (nearest point to earth) of 32,657 km and an apogee (farthest point to earth) of 35,850 km, is very close to its designated Orbit. One more manoeuvre will be performed tomorrow (December 09, 2018) to achieve the operational circular geostationary orbit of 35,786 km.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)
Credits: Reddit user pgoi

If 40+ launches are possible every year. They say 50-60/year.

 

[republic_roi97]

ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)
Credits: Reddit user pgoi

If 40+ launches are possible every year. They say 50-60/year.

That is awesome, just 10% manufacturering cost as compared to PSLV.
One question though ? While launching will it be like no smoke one or like all ither Indian launch vehicles ??

 

[Indx TechStyle]

That is awesome, just 10% manufacturering cost as compared to PSLV.
One question though ? While launching will it be like no smoke one or like all ither Indian launch vehicles ??

Just like other Indian launchers.

Our concern is only to cut down cost here. This LV uses solid fuel just like PSLV.

 

[happylion]

That is awesome, just 10% manufacturering cost as compared to PSLV.
One question though ? While launching will it be like no smoke one or like all ither Indian launch vehicles ??

It has a solid rocket motor so will have a brilliant flame due to aluminium amd ammonium perchlorate content. Smokeless solid rocket motors are very costly and basically used for military rockets to decrease thermal signature and even there in limited amounts as they are extremely costly or more unstable (NEPE CL20)

 

[Pret]

EMISAT is an advanced electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite jointly developed by ISRO-DRDO. It has a basic architecture similar to HySIS (based on Small Satellite Bus-2) which was first used in SARAL satellite. The satellite has been under development for nearly 8 years. The ELINT payload of the satellite was developed under project KAUTILYA by Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad. The project was first acknowledged in the Ministry of Defence annual report 2013-14.
EMISAT is a small satellite i.e. it weighs less than 500kg. It is likely to be placed in a highly elliptical orbit (signature SIGINT satellite orbit) so as to maximize dwell time over specific signal recording area.
SIGINT satellites like Orion are prohibitively expensive ($750 million each) for a country like India. EMISAT is a low-cost alternative. A cluster of EMISATs could mimic functions of a large satellite by sharing processing, communication and mission functions at a fraction of the cost.
https://mark20x.blogspot.com/2018/12/isros-emisat-electronic-spy-in-space.html

 

[Indx TechStyle]

EMISAT is an advanced electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite jointly developed by ISRO-DRDO. It has a basic architecture similar to HySIS (based on Small Satellite Bus-2) which was first used in SARAL satellite. The satellite has been under development for nearly 8 years. The ELINT payload of the satellite was developed under project KAUTILYA by Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad. The project was first acknowledged in the Ministry of Defence annual report 2013-14.
EMISAT is a small satellite i.e. it weighs less than 500kg. It is likely to be placed in a highly elliptical orbit (signature SIGINT satellite orbit) so as to maximize dwell time over specific signal recording area.
SIGINT satellites like Orion are prohibitively expensive ($750 million each) for a country like India. EMISAT is a low-cost alternative. A cluster of EMISATs could mimic functions of a large satellite by sharing processing, communication and mission functions at a fraction of the cost.
https://mark20x.blogspot.com/2018/12/isros-emisat-electronic-spy-in-space.html

What about SPADEX (SPace Docking EXperiment)?
Demonstration of rendezvous was supposed to be part of this mission, basis of future space lab & stations technology of India.

 

[Pret]

What about SPADEX (SPace Docking EXperiment)?
Demonstration of rendezvous was supposed to be part of this mission, basis of future space lab & stations technology of India.

Sounds like a pseudo-ASAT test to me

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Sounds like a pseudo-ASAT test to me

India has demonstrated ASAT far earlier with high altitude interception. As intercepting missiles is more difficult than doing that with satellites. So, its already there.

In case of space docking, a number of modules have to be separately sent to orbit & assemble there up to form a bigger spacecraft. For it, you have to achieve a high degree of synergy between their moments. It's a different technology altogether. Cheaper & sustainable way to build a space station instead of launching single piece from SHLV. Any defective module can be replaced too.

 

[Pret]

There was a Soviet ASAT program, I don't remember its name. Here is the kill mechanism - ASAT satellite would be launched aboard an orbit-capable rocket (SLV/IRBM/ICBM). This ASAT satellite would chase down the target (just as ISRO is planning to do), get ahead of it and shower it with shrapnel and move on. Our BMD tests were suborbital (so far). (A suborbital flight will at least reach an altitude of 100 km). Lowest possible orbit is 125km.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

There was a Soviet ASAT program, I don't remember its name. Here is the kill mechanism - ASAT satellite would be launched aboard an orbit-capable rocket (SLV/IRBM/ICBM). This ASAT satellite would chase down the target (just as ISRO is planning to do), get ahead of it and shower it with shrapnel and move on. Our BMD tests were suborbital (so far). (A suborbital flight will at least reach an altitude of 100 km). Lowest possible orbit is 125km.

That's in another way, you can transfer your weapon into identical orbit to hit the target.

But our aim is here to dock them and assemble to make a bigger module, not destroying any. Both satellites should have synchronized speed respective to orbit when they are near each other. Lower is their relative speed, more safely they can be assembled.

 

[Pret]

That's in another way, you can transfer your weapon into identical orbit to hit the target.

But our aim is here to dock them and assemble to make a bigger module, not destroying any. Both satellites should have synchronized speed respective to orbit when they are near each other. Lower is their relative speed, more safely they can be assembled.

yeah well, Multi-use technology, if someone bothers us, it wouldn't take much to retrofit a warhead.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

May be, though because direct interception technology is in its place, I don't think that we need transfer decoys to orbit.

yeah well, Multi-use technology, if someone bothers us, it wouldn't take much to retrofit a warhead.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Next, GSAT-11 awaits ₹200 crore ground system

Gateways in four cities to deliver high-speed broadband via giant satellite.

Now that GSAT-11, the third and latest Internet-boosting communication satellite, is up in space, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says it is in the process of readying a ₹150-200-crore ground infrastructure across cities to use it.

A Ka-band hub or gateway each is being set up in Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Ranchi to deliver high-speed broadband services via the giant satellite.

K.Sivan, Chairman, ISRO, said, “The activity of establishing the ground system is on and it may happen over some more months.”

The nearly six-tonne heavyweight satellite was launched in December 5 on a European launcher. Along with its older HTS mates — GSAT-19 and GSAT-29 — it forms an Indian quartet of high-throughput satellites (HTSs). Each of them has a different space location over India and must have its own ground systems.

The ground systems are being put up by external agencies chosen through competitive bidding. They will also be operated and maintained by them for five to seven years. Dr. Sivan admitted that there were “procedural delays” in completing the system with outside support.

The use of the Ka band will be new in the country. In 2017, ISRO’s payload developing unit, the Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad, had put out a search or RFP (request for proposal) for companies that could set up GSAT-11’s Ka-band ground systems.

About the HTSs, Dr. Sivan said, “Our target is to deliver close to [a Net data speed at the rate of] 100 Gbps through them. We have planned a fourth one, too — the GSAT-20. It will be a four-tonne-class HTS and will be launched towards the second half of 2019 on our GSLV MarkIII vehicle. With that, our current national requirement should be met.”

Remote areas

The fleet is designed to mainly serve the remote and hilly northeastern States, and Jammu & Kashmir, which are starved of reliable Net services. “Our concentration is on those areas, where it is not possible to establish terrestrial cables as in cities,” Dr. Sivan said.

Referring to the consecutive launches of GSAT-29 in November and GSAT-11 in December, Dr. Sivan said, “Within a matter of about 20 days, we have already beefed up the requirements of VSATs (very small aperture terminals) by putting up two satellites suited to them.”