Indian satellite launch delayed
Wednesday, 09 April 2003, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: A signal problem that delayed the launch of India's multipurpose satellite INSAT-3A Wednesday is expected to be sorted out before the end of the day, an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said. The launch of the satellite on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from Kourou in French Guyana in the early hours of Wednesday was called off for the day after scientists found that the signal strength of the two telemetry transmitters was "less than nominal". "Our scientists in Kourou are attending to the problem. We do not know the seriousness of the problem but our scientists are confident that it would be sorted out before the end of the day. That's the message from Kourou," the senior ISRO official told IANS, requesting anonymity. The transmitter is the vital link between the satellite and the Master Control Facility (MCF) in Hassan, 300 km from here. The MCF fires the apogee motors in the satellite and helps in the opening of the solar sail for the satellite to be placed in its geo-stationary home. "The link ensures that the satellite talks to us in response to the commands sent from MCF. We are not certain if the problem affects the omni or the global node of the antennas in the system," another official said. The multipurpose satellite would provide telecommunications, television broadcasting, meteorological and search and rescue services. It carries 24 transponders, 12 twelve operating in the normal C-band frequency, six in extended C-band and six in the Ku-band. Nine of the 12 normal C-band transponders provide expanded coverage and the remaining three have India coverage beam. All the extended C-band as well as the Ku-band transponders have India coverage beams. INSAT-3A also carries a Ku-band beacon and a three-channel very high resolution radiometer with two-km resolution in the visible band and eight-km resolution in thermal infrared and water vapour bands for meteorological purposes. In addition, INSAT-3A carries a charge coupled device (CCD) camera, which operates in the visible and short wave infrared bands providing a spatial resolution of one km. A data relay transponder operating in UHF band is incorporated for real time hydro-meteorological data collection from unattended platforms located on land and river basins. The data can be relayed in extended C-band to a central location. INSAT-3A also carries another transponder for search and rescue as part of India's contribution to the international Satellite-Aided Search and Rescue programme. The satellite is the third in the INSAT-3 series. INSAT-3B and INSAT-3C were launched in March 2000 and January 2002 respectively, both by Ariane.
Source: IANS
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