ISRO Satellite Centre transports ASTROSAT to Sriharikota

BENGALURU: ASTROSAT, India's first astronomical satellite aimed at studying distant celestial objects, has been transported to the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh for expected launch in September.

Indian Space Research Organisation said its ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) has transported ASTROSAT to Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, using a specially designed Satellite Transportation System (STS).

ISAC on August 16 had flagged off ASTROSAT, a mission for deep sky exploration.

ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar had earlier said that the launch of ASTROSAT will be in September.

Team ISAC, apart from its responsibility in realising the state-of-the-art satellites, has been designing and developing world class STSs, Mechanical Ground Support Equipment (MGSE) and Mass Property Machines in-house, ISRO said.

It is continuously striving to make them in India, tapping the potential of Indian industry and realise them at remarkably competitive cost indigenously.

STS protects satellite against all environment hazards encountered during transportation and it is built with a suspension cradle that attenuates shock, vibration and handling loads.

ISRO said the present day STSs have emerged from a simple packaging technique started with a wooden crate to carry engineering model of India's first satellite Aryabhata and has progressively matured in technologies to the present STS comprising state-of-the-art protection systems.

The latest design of STS is engineered in a modular way to carry satellites of different envelope dimensions (Diameter 3.05m or 3.65m or beyond) using exclusive replaceable encapsulation cover structures and a single common base that comprises all functional/protection devices, it said.

System Integration Group (SIG), ISAC, has the expertise in the design, development and realisation of STS for different class of satellites from conception to realisation, test and validation, and has successfully used a host of STS for satellite shipment, ISRO said.

In addition, an Equipment Transportation System (ETS) is built to cater to the shipment of smaller satellites, multiple equipment panels, subsystems of satellites, it added.

ISRO said at present, design of new generation of large STSs (12.0m x 5.3m x 4.2m) for GSAT-11 and I6K (6000kg)class satellites are on the anvil.