ISRO to augment INSAT/GSAT system by 2012

Hyderabad, Sep 29 (UNI) The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will increase the transponder capacity of INSAT/GSAT system from the present 190 transponders to 500 transponders by 2012.

Delivering the 39th Bhabha Memorial lecture instituted by the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer (IETE) after being conferred upon the honorary fellowship, ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said here today that to meet the growing demand for the transponders and maintain on-orbit spares, the ISRO planned 'Satcom missions' comprising small, medium and large satellites compatible with GSLV, MK II and MK III.

Highlighting ISRO's thrust areas for the next decade, he said it planned digital multimedia and data broadcast satellites with multiple beams in S-band and hand-held terminals capable of receiving broadband services.

The new satellites would be designed to support advanced transmission techniques like ''8-PSK, 16-QAM, turbo codes, LDPC and higher commpression techniques for transmission, he explained.

The organisation was building multimedia satellite INSAT-4E/GSAT-6 using high power transponders in S-band and regional beams with a life of 12 years, to meet the requirement of box-fixed mobile consumers.

''The satellite will have five spot beams in the CxS (BSS) band and a return link capacity in SxC (MSS) band facilitating provision of interactive services and mobile communication.'' GSAT-4, now under advanced stage of development, would be the first satellite to provide Ka-band capacity with eight beams of 1.2 GHz, he said.

The country planned to have one more satellite in Ka-band with multiple spot beam for various services including Ultra Small Aperture Terminals (USAT), he added.

UNI