ISRO officials and Bhutan government inaugurate ground station of Indo-Bhutan satellite
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BhutanSat was launched as a piggyback payload on ISRO's PSLV C54 rocket on November 26, 2022
The ground station of the jointly developed India-Bhutan satellite has been inaugurated in Thimpu, the capital city of Bhutan. It is a ground-based facility that helps communicate with and receive information sent by the satellite. Ground stations (the major component of which is the parabolic antenna) communicate with satellites by transmitting and receiving radio waves.
"This ground station will enable Bhutan to receive data from India-Bhutan SAT, pertaining to its territory, directly from the satellite and process it in real-time," said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
The inauguration in Bhutan was carried out by Dr Somanath, chairman ISRO and secretary, Dept of Space, Lyonpo Tandi Dorji, Bhutan's foreign minister, Lyonpo Karma Wangdi, Bhutan's minister of industry, commerce and employment and Sudhakar Delela, Indian ambassador to Bhutan.
BhutanSat was launched as a piggyback payload on ISRO's PSLV C54 rocket on November 26, 2022. The primary satellite payload was Indo-French ocean observation satellite EOS-6 and there were eight nanosatellites on board including BhutanSat.
The 'INS-2B'or BhutanSat is ISRO's second nanosatellite for Bhutan. It comprises two payloads- NanoMx and APRS-Digipeater. The NanoMx is a multispectral optical imaging payload developed by India's Space
Applications Centre (SAC). The APRS-Digipeater payload is jointly developed by DITTBhutan and ISRO's UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), ISRO said.
Bhutan's Information and Communication Minister Lyonpo Karma D Wangdi witnessed the launch mission from ISRO's mission control centre in Sriharikota and said that ISRO's commendable track record in launching satellites left no doubt about the mission’s success.
Ground station for India-Bhutan #satellite inaugurated in Thimphu, #Bhutan by #ISRO Chairman& officials, Bhutan Ministers
— Sidharth.M.P (@sdhrthmp) March 14, 2023
BhutanSat(for mapping,ham radio, txt msging) launched on PSLVC54, 26th Nov 2022. Ground stn to help communicate with sat & send-receive& process info @isro pic.twitter.com/5drp98KpIC
He said the mission was another key milestone for the close relationship between India and Bhutan. Indian Minister for External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar said ISRO is working on setting up a ground station in Bhutan.
Speaking exclusively to WION after the launch, Bhutan's Minister Lyonpo Karma D Wangdi said the satellite could capture images of Bhutan for mapping forests, urban settlements, and landslide-prone areas and can enable amateur ham radio text messaging services. He added that eight engineers from Bhutan worked along with their counterparts from ISRO on this project.
"BhutanSat launch a historic moment and a key milestone in India-Bhutan ties. This is just a beginning of collaborative efforts in using outer space and a small beginning for Bhutan's fledgling space programme," he said.
As part of Space diplomacy, India has been working with established spacefaring nations such as Russia, USA, France, and Japan. It is also supporting aspiring spacefaring nations at various levels.
In 2017, ISRO launched the SAARC satellite - a geostationary satellite meant for communications and meteorological purposes, specifically serving the South Asia region. The South Asia Satellite provides a role in telemedicine, tele-education, banking, and television broadcasting.
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