President to dedicate INSAT 4B to nation on Jun 8

Bangalore, May 28 (UNI) President A P J Abdul Kalam will dedicate the latest Indian Communication Satellite--INSAT 4B--to the nation on June 8 at Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Master Control Facility in Hassan.

This was announced by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair after the launch of the state-of-the-art interactive VSAT Channel of EDUSAT network of the Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum by Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi at the Raj Bhavan here today.

INSAT 4B was launched aboard an Ariane five launcher on March 12 this year. It carried 12 high power Ku band transponders and 12 C band transponders. The satellite was currently at its orbital home of 93.5 degrees east longitude where it was co-located with INSAT 3A Mr Nair said preparations were on for the launch of INSAT 4CR in September this year. It would be a substitute for the INSAT 4C that met a watery grave in the Bay of Bengal on July 10 last year following the failure of the second operational flight of GSLV.

The Ku Band transponders of INSAT 4B and 4CR would augment the DTH capacity in the country.

On Chandrayan mission, the ISRO Chairman said the satellite was being built at the ISRO satellite centre here for its scheduled launch in 2008-09.

UNI