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ISRO will launch one of its biggest communications satellite the 3,100-kg GSat-8 on May 20 on the European Ariane launcher, the ISRO Chairman, Dr K. Radhakrishnan, said on Saturday.
With 24 Ku-band transponders, the spacecraft will augment capacity and herald India's space-based navigational effort. The special payload GAGAN is meant to improve positional and altitude details for pilots flying aircraft over Indian skies. The Rs 750-crore GAGAN was jointly sponsored by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India.
GSat-8 will be launched from Arianespace's launchpad in Kourou in South America, he told at a news conference. GAGAN would only improve on the US GPS. The first of the seven satellites of a fully-Indian regional navigation system, the IRNSS, would take off in mid-2012.
ISRO was also adding new facilities across three centres as part of its 12th Plan agenda and the investments were not finalised. It would set up a 530-acre centre at Chitradurga for advanced satellites. This would be part of the science city where the Indian Institute of Science, BARC, and DRDO planned to have their own large campuses.
Somewhere near its Sriharikota launchpad along the Andhra Pradesh coast, it would set up an integrated facility where its vendor industries could assemble sub-systems for rockets.
Thiruvananthapuram would have facilities for hypersonic and plasma wind tunnels to support the rocket making facilities.
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