India's plans to have a GPS-based navigation system got a shot in the arm with the government approving development of a communications satellite for the purpose.

A meeting of the union cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved undertaking the design and development of GSAT-10 spacecraft at a cost of Rs 735 crore.On 24th July, the Union Cabinet had approved undertaking design and development of GSAT-11 communication satellite at a total cost of Rs. 500 crores.



So, 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. At 4.5 tonnes, it will weigh more than twice as much as the biggest Indian satellite in orbit now.

GSAT -10, a 3.3 tonne satellite, one of the heavier spacecrafts to be developed by ISRO, will replace INSAT 2E and INSAT-3B, an official release said. The GSAT-10 satellite will have 12 high power Ku-band transponders, 12 C-band and 12 extended C-band India coverage transponders which would create additional capacity for Direct-to-Home like operations.The satellite will also have a navigation payload that would provide on-orbit back up for the GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN), a system to support all phases of flight over Indian airspace and adjoining areas. GSAT-10 will replace INSAT 2E and INSAT 3B which were launched in April 1999 and May 2000 respectively. 



"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," Satish told.

"With 16 high capacity multi-beams in Ku/Ka band, GSAT-11 will provide much faster uplinks for a host of communications and broadcasting services, including direct-to-home (DTH television). With a dry mass of 2.1 tonne, the spacecraft will provide 10 GHz of bandwidth, which will be equivalent to about 220 transponders of 36 MHz," Satish pointed out.



The advanced satellite will employ a new 1-4K Bus (computer network). It will be configured with two-sided large solar array panels generating 11 KW of power.



The indigenously developed GSAT series of satellites are aimed at revolutionising communications, spanning digital audio, data and video broadcasting. The earlier versions of GSAT such as GSAT-1 and GSAT-2 were designed with two S-band and three C-band transponders.



In the run-up to GSAT-11, the space agency is scheduling the launch of other communications satellites in the GSAT series over the next two years.The GSAT-10 satellite will have 12 high power Ku-band transponders, 12 C-band and 12 extended C-band India coverage transponders which would create additional capacity for Direct-to-Home like operations.