FW: NEWS: Work on new Insat satellite series to begin April 2003

["Laina Raveendran Greene" <laina@getit.org>]

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-----Original Message-----
From: Frederick Noronha [mailto:fred@bytesforall.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 1:26 AM
To: India Gii
Subject: NEWS: Work on new Insat satellite series to begin April 2003


India-Space-Insat (words 245)

Work on new Insat satellite series to begin April 2003

by Imran Qureshi, Indo-Asian News Service

Bangalore, July 24 (IANS) Indian space scientists are expected to begin
developmental work on the fourth series of Insat satellites in April 2003 in
a bid to meet the massive communication boom in the next few years.

The Insat-4 series of satellites would be two-ton birds that would be hurled
into space by the indigenous geo-stationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV),
a leading space scientist said Tuesday.

V.R. Katti, programme director, Geosat, at the Indian Space Applications
Center, was addressing a media workshop here.

The Insat-4 series will go up as soon as all the five Insat-3 series
satellites are launched. Insat-3B is already operational, while the
Insat-3C, 3A, 3E and 3D satellites will be launched in the next
one-and-a-half years.

Once they are up, these satellites will provide 68 C-band transponders, 42
in the extended C-band and nine in the Ku band. But, the demand is expected
to more than double in 2003-04, according to officials. This requirement
would be met by the nine satellites of the Insat-4 series.

On an average, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) would be
launching two satellites every year from 2003 to meet the growing demand,
say officials.

Meanwhile, the Insat-3A satellite is undergoing the final stages of
testing ahead of its launch in September-end or early October," says ISRO
chairman K. Kasturi Rangan.

--Indo-Asian News Service


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