ISRO mulls developing higher capability communication satellites

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to develop communication satellites in higher frequency bands and power and data handling capacity in the range of 100 Gigabits per second.

The main aim of ISRO to develop these higher capability communication satellites is to meet the growing demands of broadband internet and rural telecom connectivity.

ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said that they are looking for suitable foreign partners to acquire the technology and upgrade ISRO's current satellite platforms to meet the future demands.

ISRO chairman made this statement, while addressing the convocation of BITS-Pilani Hyderabad campus.

ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan made following statements to upgrade ISRO's platforms

• For the future, ISRO is looking for communication satellites in the higher frequency bands with about 15 KW of power and data handling capacity in the range of 100 Gigabits per second.
• This will help to meet the ever growing demand in the country towards broadband internet, rural telecom connectivity.
• Besides launching new satellites, ISRO is also planning of replacing the ageing satellites and enhance the observation capability to the level of 0.25 m spatial resolution and provide new capability for imaging from geo stationary orbit with 50 m spatial resolution.
• ISRO is also partnering with Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA to jointly develop a dual frequency microwave imaging satellite by 2020.
• In this scheme of alliance, ISRO is responsible for the overall satellite platform, S Band synthetic aperture radar and the launch of the satellite by GSLV.
• On the moon mission, ISRO is developing its own Lander-module and lunar rover as well as orbiter craft for Chandrayaan-2 that is targeted for launch by GSLV within the next three years.
• Mars orbiter space aircraft has traversed nearly 88 per cent distance along its designated path to the red planet. The next operational milestone is the insertion of the spacecraft into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014. If successful, India will be the first Asian country to orbit a spacecraft around planet Mars and the first country in the world to achieve this in the first attempt.
• ISRO is trying to develop number of critical technologies for a possible human spaceflight in the future.