ISRO plans to connect villages through satellite

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair said that the ISRO was in the process of designing a satellite to provide telecommunication connectivity in the villages of the country.

Speaking after receiving the K R Narayanan Award, instituted by the K R Narayanan Foundation, in Kochi on Friday, Madhavan Nair said that such a satellite gained significance as around 50,000 villages in the country had no access to the communication network.

“The ISRO is planning to use multiple spot-beams on the satellite which is expected to be launched within two-and-half years,” he said.

Referring to the abrupt end of the country’s first lunar mission Chandrayaan-I, Madhavan Nair said that though some problems were anticipated at the beginning of the mission, we wanted to complete the important experiments much earlier.

“Around 95 percent of the data collection has been completed. It will take six months to two years to complete the analysis of the data. However, the successful launch of Chandrayaan-I was a remarkable feat for the country in upgrading its technological capabilities,” he said.

He said that the ISRO had no immediate plans for a manned mission to moon.

“Presently, the ISRO is focused on developing a capsule by 2015 to take man on a circumnavigation of the earth. A manned mission to moon is planned only five to six years after this mission,” Nair said.

He also said that around 1,000 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) would be set up in the country one year.

“Around 400 such stations have already been set up in various states. A network of 75 AWS, covering all the districts, has been established in Kerala,” he said.

Nair said that the ISRO was also plannig to set up Village Resource Centres (VRC), in association with various agencies, to provide the benefits of space technology and other IT-enabled services to the common man.

“A VRC functions as a single-window delivery mechanism of need-based services in the fields of education, health, nutrition, agriculture, water and weather. Around 473 VRCs have been set up in the country, including 21 in Kerala,” he said.