By IANS
Bangalore: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will dedicate the country’s latest communication satellite, Insat-4B, to the nation Friday in Karnataka.
The event will take place at the Master Control Facility (MCF) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at Hassan, about 200 km from here.
Insat-4B was launched March 12 from Kourou in French Guyana by the Ariane-5 spacecraft of the European space agency. The satellite has 24 transponders, including 12 in Ku-band for direct-to-home (DTH) television channels and 12 in C-band for broadcasting and communication services.
“Insat-4B has become fully operational. The president will dedicate the satellite to the nation from MCF, which monitors the health and other parameters of the spacecraft,” an ISRO official told IANS here.
Later, Kalam will herald the silver jubilee celebrations of the MCF on the completion of its 25 years of service to the nation. The MCF was set up in 1982 to receive telemetry signals from ISRO’s Insat satellites for remote sensing, weather monitoring and education. It also controls the satellites in the geo-synchronous and polar orbits after they are launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh or Kouru.
The president will also honour some serving and retired scientists of the space agency on the occasion. Instituted by ISRO and the Astronautical Society of India for the first time, lifetime achievement awards are being given in recognition of their loyalty and service to the nation.