ISRO faces tough task of salvaging GSAT-6A satellite

BENGALURU:The eight-day-long silence of Indian Space Research Organisation’s most powerful communication satellite, the March 29-launched GSAT-6A, has now got ISRO scientists really worried — albeit with a ray of hope that their efforts to re-establish communication links with the satellite would yield positive results.

Scientists are yet to arrive at the cause of the sudden failure of the communication link with ISRO’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka — the ground station which was remotely controlling the satellite’s orbit-raising operations. The `270 crore satellite’s communication link broke down just four minutes after the second orbit-raising operations were completed at 10.51am on March 31.

The satellite is expected to facilitate a significantly fortified communication network for Defence and other security personnel posted in the remotest corners and forward border posts of the country by providing a platform for developing technologies such as demonstration of 6-metre S-Band unfurlable antenna and hand-held ground terminals. These could also be useful in civil satellite-based mobile communication applications.

ISRO scientists, on the condition of anonymity, told The New Indian Express that they were relentlessly trying to salvage the satellite, which is still revolving around the earth.“There have been cases where satellites have been salvaged after some time duration, and we hope the same happens with GSAT-6A,” said a senior scientist, who, however, refrained from explaining how much time and whether that was possible with a revolving satellite.

With a 13-hour revolution around the earth, the scientists are getting just one shot every 24 hours to re-establish communication links with GSAT-6A. It is not clear if the scientists will be able to salvage a revolving satellite — in which case, after a period of time, it would be “declared a failure”.ISRO scientists are assessing various reasons for the power system malfunction, but two are mainly being verified — effect of solar storm and the new lithium-ion cells used on board the satellite.GSAT-6A was launched on board the GSLV-F08 launcher on March 29 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.