India's First Space Observatory ASTROSAT Transported to SHAR Spaceport Through STS For Launch

[Chanakya's_Chant]

Satellite Transportation Systems (STS)

Astrosat is India's first dedicated astronomy satellite and is scheduled to launch on board the PSLV in September 2015.​

After celebrating 69th Independence Day, ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) had yet another eventful day on August 16, 2015, flagging off the nation’s prestigious and ISRO’s sought after satellite ASTROSAT, a mission for deep sky exploration. ASTROSAT was transported to the country’s spaceport at Satish Dawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, using a specially designed Satellite Transportation System (STS). 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 and continuously striving to make them in India, tapping the potentials of Indian industry and realise them at remarkably competitive cost indigenously.

Here comes a brief story of satellite transportation, narrating about systems in place that make the successful shipment of satellites within India and abroad.

STS protects satellite against all environment hazards encountered during transportation. The STS is built with a suspension cradle that attenuates shock, vibration and handling loads. Double walled thermally insulated, sealed encapsulation structure of STS shields satellite from climatic hazards such as temperature, humidity, contamination, rain, dust, differential pressure, etc. Robust all metallic Faraday’s cage design and low resistance electrical bonding of STS provides Electro Static Discharge (ESD) path and protection against RF radiation hazards.

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 Aryabata and has progressively matured in technologies to the present STS comprising state-of-the-art protection systems, namely, Shock and Vibration Isolation System, Active / Passive Temperature and humidity Control, Pressure Equalisation and Rapid Decompression Protection during air shipment, Gaseous Nitrogen Purging for satellite / its subsystems / payload(s), Environmental Data Acquisition System, etc., along with integrally built handling and mobility devices, clean interiors, ESD protection wraps, corrosion resistant and aesthetic exteriors.

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 is equipped with a Tilt Table that facilitates handling of tall satellites in vertical orientation at clean room and tilting it to horizontal transportation mode before closing the container cover. As against vertical mode of transportation, the horizontal mode meets the cargo cabin envelope dimensions in case of air shipment and also overcomes hurdles during road transportation such as height under the bridges, railway lines, electrical lines etc. Since mid 90s, horizontal mode of transportation has been adopted for air shipment of satellites abroad to launch destination at French Guyana. The environment around the satellite inside STS is continuously monitored and the data on shock and vibrations, temperature and humidity throughout the shipment are acquired, analysed and observed to be well within the safe limits which is also confirmed through post transportation checks on satellites.

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. In addition, an Equipment Transportation System (ETS) is built to cater to the shipment of smaller satellites, multiple equipment panels, subsystems of satellites, etc. Apart from the standard features of STS, ETS has four built-in overhead hoists, modular suspension systems, and three way opening doors to suit varying interfaces. 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 on the anvil. These are to be handled under existing confined civil infrastructure / laboratories, limited crane capacity, constraints and compliance for air shipment using commercially available cargo aircraft.

These world class ground support systems required for satellite building are realised through Indian industry and ISRO has been nurturing and hand-holding them towards ‘the commitment to total quality and zero defects in space systems and services’.

Source:- Satellite Transportation Systems (STS) - ISRO

 

[Gandhi follower]

Great !!!

 

[Echo_419]

Satellite Transportation Systems (STS)

Astrosat is India's first dedicated astronomy satellite and is scheduled to launch on board the PSLV in 2015.​

After celebrating 69th Independence Day, ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) had yet another eventful day on August 16, 2015, flagging off the nation’s prestigious and ISRO’s sought after satellite ASTROSAT, a mission for deep sky exploration. ASTROSAT was transported to the country’s spaceport at Satish Dawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, using a specially designed Satellite Transportation System (STS). 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 and continuously striving to make them in India, tapping the potentials of Indian industry and realise them at remarkably competitive cost indigenously.

Here comes a brief story of satellite transportation, narrating about systems in place that make the successful shipment of satellites within India and abroad.

STS protects satellite against all environment hazards encountered during transportation. The STS is built with a suspension cradle that attenuates shock, vibration and handling loads. Double walled thermally insulated, sealed encapsulation structure of STS shields satellite from climatic hazards such as temperature, humidity, contamination, rain, dust, differential pressure, etc. Robust all metallic Faraday’s cage design and low resistance electrical bonding of STS provides Electro Static Discharge (ESD) path and protection against RF radiation hazards.

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 Aryabata and has progressively matured in technologies to the present STS comprising state-of-the-art protection systems, namely, Shock and Vibration Isolation System, Active / Passive Temperature and humidity Control, Pressure Equalisation and Rapid Decompression Protection during air shipment, Gaseous Nitrogen Purging for satellite / its subsystems / payload(s), Environmental Data Acquisition System, etc., along with integrally built handling and mobility devices, clean interiors, ESD protection wraps, corrosion resistant and aesthetic exteriors.

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 is equipped with a Tilt Table that facilitates handling of tall satellites in vertical orientation at clean room and tilting it to horizontal transportation mode before closing the container cover. As against vertical mode of transportation, the horizontal mode meets the cargo cabin envelope dimensions in case of air shipment and also overcomes hurdles during road transportation such as height under the bridges, railway lines, electrical lines etc. Since mid 90s, horizontal mode of transportation has been adopted for air shipment of satellites abroad to launch destination at French Guyana. The environment around the satellite inside STS is continuously monitored and the data on shock and vibrations, temperature and humidity throughout the shipment are acquired, analysed and observed to be well within the safe limits which is also confirmed through post transportation checks on satellites.

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. In addition, an Equipment Transportation System (ETS) is built to cater to the shipment of smaller satellites, multiple equipment panels, subsystems of satellites, etc. Apart from the standard features of STS, ETS has four built-in overhead hoists, modular suspension systems, and three way opening doors to suit varying interfaces. 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 on the anvil. These are to be handled under existing confined civil infrastructure / laboratories, limited crane capacity, constraints and compliance for air shipment using commercially available cargo aircraft.

These world class ground support systems required for satellite building are realised through Indian industry and ISRO has been nurturing and hand-holding them towards ‘the commitment to total quality and zero defects in space systems and services’.

Source:- Satellite Transportation Systems (STS) - ISRO

Great news also ignore the trolls

 

[Rocketman]

First stop your citizens from getting raped daily, than do such things. I wonder how this satellite will help the people.

Great news!!

While India goes on exploring space, Our neighbor is still trying to enter and break India!!

It shows the national character of Pakistan.

If you don't realize the importance of a successful space program, there is no point explaining this to an illiterate like you.

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

Astrosat is India's first dedicated astronomy satellite and is scheduled to launch on board the PSLV in 2015. Based on the success of the satellite-borne Indian X-ray Astronomy Experiment (IXAE), which was launched in 1996, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) approved (in 2004) further development for a full-fledged astronomy satellite ASTROSAT

An X-ray astronomy experiment for the study of spectral and temporal characteristics of cosmic X-ray sources was developed jointly by TIFR and ISRO Satellite Center (ISAC). The payload consists of three identical pointed proportional counters (PPC) and one X-ray Sky Monitor (XSM). Each of the detectors are controlled by independent microprocessor based processing electronics. A common electronics sub-system acts as an interface with the satellite bus. An oven controlled oscillator (accuracy one part in 109) provides high timing accuracy. The Indian satellite IRS-P3, carrying the X-ray astronomy instruments was launched on 1996, March 21 with Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-D3 from Shriharikota Range, India.​

A large number of leading astronomy research institutions in India and abroad are jointly building various instruments for the satellite. Important areas requiring broad band coverage include studies of astrophysical objects ranging from the nearby solar systemobjects to distant stars, to objects at cosmological distances; timing studies of variables ranging from pulsations of the hot white dwarfs to active galactic nuclei with time scales ranging from milliseconds to few hours to days.

Astrosat is currently proposed as a multi-wavelength astronomy mission on an IRS-class satellite into a near-Earth, equatorial orbitby the PSLV. The 5 instruments on-board cover the visible (320-530 nm), near UV (180-300 nm), far UV (130-180 nm), soft X-ray(0.3-8 keV and 2-10 keV) and hard X-ray (3-80 keV and 10-150 keV) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Participants

The Astrosat project is a collaborative effort of a growing list of research institutions. The current participants are:

• Indian Space Research Organization
• Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
• Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore
• Raman Research Institute, Bangalore
• Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune
• Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai
• S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata
• Canadian Space Agency
• University of Leicester (UoL), UK

Mission

ASTROSAT will be a proposal-driven general purpose observatory, with main scientific focus on:

• Simultaneous multi-wavelength monitoring of intensity variations in a broad range of cosmic sources
• Monitoring the X-ray sky for new transients
• Sky surveys in the hard X-ray and UV bands
• Broadband spectroscopic studies of X-ray binaries, AGN, SNRs, clusters of galaxies and stellar coronae
• Studies of periodic and non-periodic variability of X-ray sources

Astrosat will carry out multi-wavelength observations covering spectral bands from radio, optical, IR, UV, X-ray and Gamma ray regions both for study of specific sources of interest and in survey mode. While radio, optical, IR observations would be coordinated through ground-based telescopes, the high energy regions, i.e., UV, X-rays and Gamma rays would be covered by the dedicated satellite borne instrumentation of Astrosat.

The mission would also study near simultaneous muti-wavelength data from different variable sources. In a binary system, for example, regions near the compact object emit predominantly in X-rays, the accretion disc emitting most of its light in the UV/optical waveband, whereas the mass of the donating star is brightest in the optical band.

The observatory will also carry out:

1. Low to moderate resolution spectroscopy over wide energy band with the primary emphasis on studies of X-ray emitting objects
2. Timing studies of periodic and aperiodic phenomenon in X-ray binaries
3. Studies of pulsations in X-ray pulsars
4. QPOs, flickering, flaring, and other variations in X-ray binaries
5. Short and long term intensity variations in AGNs
6. Time lag studies in low/hard X-rays and UV/optical radiation
7. Detection and study of x-ray transients.

In particular, the mission will train its instruments at active galactic nuclei at the core of the Milky Way that is believed to have a super massive black hole.

Payloads

The scientific payload has a total mass of 750 kg and contains six instruments.

• The UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) - The UltraViolet Imaging Telescope will perform imaging simultaneously in three channels: 130-180 nm, 180-300 nm, and 320-530 nm. The field of view is a circle of ~ 28 arcmin diameter and the angular resolution is 1.8" for the ultraviolet channels and 2.5" for the visible channel. In each of the three channels a spectral band can be selected through a set of filters mounted on a wheel; in addition, for the two ultraviolet channels a grating can be selected in the wheel to do slitless spectroscopy with a resolution of ~100.

• Soft X-ray imaging Telescope (SXT)- The soft X-ray telescope on Astrosat will employ focussing optics and a deep depletion CCD camera at the focal plane to perform X-ray imaging in 0.3-8.0 keV band. The optics will consist of 41 concentric shells of gold-coated conical foil mirrors in an approximate Wolter-I configuration. The focal plane CCD camera will be very similar to that flown on SWIFT XRT. The CCD will be operated at a temperature of about −80 °C by thermoelectric cooling.

• The LAXPC Instrument - For X-ray timing and low-resolution spectral studies over a broad energy band (3-80 keV) Astrosat will use a cluster of 3 co-aligned identical Large Area X-ray Proportional Counters (LAXPCs), each with a multi-wire-multi-layer configuration and a Field of View of 1° × 1°. These detectors are designed to achieve (I) wide energy band of 3-80 keV, (II) high detection efficiency over the entire energy band, (III) narrow field of view to minimize source confusion, (IV) moderate energy resolution, (V) small internal background and (VI) long lifetime in space.

• Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI) - Astrosat will carry a hard X-ray imager in the form of CZTI. It will consist of a Pixellated Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride detector array of ~1000 cm2 geometric area. These detectors have very good detection efficiency, close to 100% up to 100 keV, and have a superior energy resolution (~2% at 60 keV) compared to scintillation and proportional counters. Their small pixel size also facilitates medium resolution imaging in hard x-rays. The CZTI will be fitted with a two dimensional coded mask, for imaging purposes. The sky brightness distribution will be obtained by applying a deconvolution procedure to the shadow pattern of the coded mask recorded by the detector. One of the major scientific achievements of CZTI would be the polarization measurements for bright galactic X-ray sources.

• Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM) - The Scanning Sky Monitor will consist of three position sensitive proportional counters, each with a one-dimensional coded mask, very similar in design to the All Sky Monitor on NASA's RXTE satellite. The gas-filled proportional counter will have resistive wires as anodes. The ratio of the output charge on either ends of the wire will provide the position of the x-ray interaction, providing an imaging plane at the detector. The coded mask, consisting of a series of slits, will cast a shadow on the detector, from which the sky brightness distribution will be derived.

• Charged Particle Monitor (CPM) - A charged particle monitor (CPM) will be included as a part of Astrosat payloads to control the operation of the LAXPC, SXT and SSM. Even though the orbital inclination of the satellite will be 8 deg or less, in about 2/3 of the orbits, the satellite will spend a considerable time (15 – 20 minutes) in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region which has high fluxes of low energy protons and electrons. The high voltage will be lowered or put off using data from CPM when the satellite enters the SAA region to prevent damage to the detectors as well as to minimize ageing effect in the Proportional Counters.

Ground support

The Ground Command and Control Centre for Astrosat will be located at ISAC, Bangalore, India. Commanding and data download will be possible during every visible pass over Bangalore. Ten out of 14 orbits per day will be visible to the ground station. The satellite is capable of gathering 420 gigabits of data every day that can be down loaded in 10 to 11 orbits visible at Tracking and Data receiving center of ISRO in Bangalore. A third 11-meter antenna at the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) was operational in July 2009 to track Astrosat.

Source:- ASTROSAT | astrosat

X-rays start at ~0.008 nm and extend across the electromagnetic spectrum to ~8 nm, over which Earth's atmosphere is opaque.​

With the launch of ASTROSAT in September - India will become the second Asian country after Japan to establish a space observatory/telescope in orbit. ASTROSAT is essentially a X-ray telescope.

Earlier NASA launched the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) in 1999 - It was renamed after the renowned Indian Astrophysicist and Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel Prize for Physics, 1983) - Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. Chandra is the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever built.

Artist illustration of the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Launch of STS-93

Crew of STS-93 with a scale model
​

Chandra is one of the Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1991–2000), and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

Indonesia to launch satellite from India​

Jakarta, Indonesia is set to launch a locally made satellite from India on September 27, a media report said on Thursday.

The LAPAN A2/Orari satellite was produced entirely in Indonesia by the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) in 2012. It is a successor to LAPAN A1/Tubsat, which was launched in India in 2007, The Jakarta Post reported.

"Today, I'm officially sending off the LAPAN A2/Orari satellite," said President Joko Widodo during the launch ceremony on Thursday.

The satellite will be shipped to India on Friday. It will be launched at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

LAPAN A2/Orari will function as a tool to monitor land usage, ship movements, sea resources and fishing explorations.

It is also equipped with an automatic packet reporting system on board to aid disaster mitigation by monitoring floods, changes in the sea level as well as movements of the population.

The satellite will orbit the earth along the equator with an altitude of 650 km and will travel at 7.5 km per second - enabling it to circle 14 times a day.

Indonesia to launch satellite from India - The Times of India

LAPAN A2 will be launched onboard PSLV-XL C34 - along with India's first space observatory ASTROSAT.

 

[Gandhi follower]

This is not a halal satellite as it is launched by a hindu rocket.

 

[Hindustani78]

LAPAN A2 is an indonesian microsatellite based on the LAPAN-Tubsat. It carries an AIS (Automatic Identification System) to identify the ships in the waters of Indonesia and a video camera with a range three times wider than the Lapan-Tubsat.

The satellite structure and many subsystems are the same as in its sister satellite LAPAN-ORARI (LAPAN A3).

The Earth observation payload of LAPAN A2 consists of a Video camera (Kappa PAL) for 80 km width ground coverage and a Video camera (Kappa HDTV for high resolution satellite color video observation with a ground resolution of 6 m and a ground coverage of 11 × 6 km per video frame.

The satellite will be deployed in a 650 km near equatorial orbit with an inclination of between 6 and 8 degrees enabling it to cross the territory of Indonesia 14 times a day.

The primary aims of the mission are Earth observation using an RGB camera and maritime traffic monitoring using AIS, both using frequencies outside the Amateur Satellite Service.

The IARU has coordinated these frequencies for LAPA-A2/ORARI:
• 437.425 MHz telemetry beacon
• 435.880 MHz FM uplink
• 145.880 MHz FM downlink (5 watts)
• 145.825 APRS digipeater (5 watts)