Bangalore, July 25: India will soon design and develop its heaviest communications satellite GSAT-11 to provide advanced telecom services from 2011-12, a senior official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said here on Friday. At 4.5 tonnes, it will weigh more than twice as much as the biggest Indian satellite in orbit now.
“Activities to design and develop GSAT-11 will start immediately, as the project has been cleared by the government at a cost of Rs.5-billion (Rs.500 crore),” ISRO Director S. Satish said.
The advanced communications technology satellite will be launched in mid-2011 on board the Geo-Synchronus Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-Mark III) from ISRO’s spaceport at Sriharikota, about 80 km north-east of Chennai.
“The satellite will be designed at our satellite centre in Bangalore, payloads consisting of 40 transponders in Ku/Ka band will be built at the space applications centre in Ahmedabad and the 630-tonne rocket (GSLV-Mark III) will be rolled out from the liquid propulsion systems centre in Thiruvananthapuram,” Mr. Satish told IANS.
The indigenously developed GSAT series of satellites are aimed at revolutionising communications, spanning digital audio, data and video broadcasting.
–IANS