The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday inaugurated its 32 metre deep space network (DSN) antenna at Byalalu, 40 kms from Bangalore, which will track the country's first unmanned lunar mission scheduled to be launched on October 22.
The antenna will track the mission and relay data to the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) set up in Bangalore.
"As a part of DSN, this antenna will provide telemetry, command and science data reception from the 11 payloads functions for all space mission. It will go on to provide services to any satellite, may it be Indian or foreign," said the chairman and managing director of Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) K S Rajashekhara Rao.
The antenna was commissioned by the ECIL.
The 32-metre antenna, the first of its kind in India, was launched by ISRO chairman and secretary for department of space, G Madhavan Nair.
The antenna which has a life of 20 years, will begin tracking the chandrayaan-I satellite after six hours of the launch when it comes into the transferable orbit between the earth and moon.
The steerable 300-ton structure has the 32 meter diameterparabolic main reflector in cassegrain configuration. The reflector is illuminated by a series of precision machined mirrors arranged in beam waveguide make-up. "The antenna which can track satellites up to a few million kilometres that is beyond the solar system can be upgraded for deeper space missions," Rao said.
The system installed in the outskirts of Bangalore will however not affect the life at the village with the radio frequency waves. "When any RF wave coming below an angle of 5o the antenna switches off to avoid any damage to the life around," said Y S Mayya, director (technical) of ECIL.
India is the fourth country to have a DSN facility after the US, Russia and France.
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