ISRO moving ahead full steam

10 July 2006

Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has a busy launch calendar ahead. A slew of launches have been lined up under the country's two satellite systems-Indian National Satellite (Insat) and Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Satellite. While Insat satellites are for communication the IRS satellites are for earth observation / remote sensing..

For the first time in its history, ISRO will launch a vehicle to carry a third-party satellite as the primary payload. Preparations have commenced for a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C8 (PSLV C8) launch of the commercial spacecraft Agile of Italy as the primary payload and an advanced avionic module (AAM) as the secondary payload. The launch is planned this fiscal.

Similarly preparations are underway for the launch of PSLV C7, also planned this fiscal. PSLV C7 will carry three satellites on board - the 660kg Indian remote sensing (IRS) satellite, the Cartosat 2, 610kg Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) and the 56kg Indonesian Lapan Tubsat.

The other launches are of the Insat and remote sensing satellite series.

Insat satellites in the pipeline
Established in 1983, Insat is one of the largest domestic communication satellite systems in the Asia Pacific region. The system has nine satellites in operation - Insat 2E, Insat 3A, Insat 3B, Insat 3C, Insat 3E, Insat 4A, Kalpana, GSAT 2 and Edusat.