GSAT-6A's big antenna deployed by ISRO

While every channel was busy in covering News about Sheena Bora Murder Story. ISRO on August 27th 2015 successfully Launched GSLV-D6 carrying GSAT-6. Only few news papers found few space to publish this in their News Papers. But the less-celebrated textbook launch of GSLV-D6 was by far one of the most significant moments in the history of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) programme.

Why GSAT-6A is so important to India?

ISRO  said that it had deployed the S-Band Unfurlable Antenna of six metre diameter successfully.The satellite was launched by ISRO's heavy rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark II (GSLV) and was successfully placed into geo transfer orbit (GTO) on Thursday.One of the advanced features of GSAT-6 satellite is its S-Band Unfurl able Antenna of six meter diameter - the largest satellite antenna released by ISRO. "This antenna is utilized for five spot beams over the Indian mainland, which exploit the frequency reuse scheme to increase frequency spectrum utilization efficiency," said ISRO.

What was the message to World?

India has built and validated a perfectly working cryogenic engine. And the highly complicated engine has delivered a perfect performance on flight not once but twice (GSLV-D6 was the second successful launch using the indigenously developed cryogenic engine after the January 2014 launch). This, despite sanctions and restrictions (on transfer of dual use technologies) thrown at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) by developed nations who were clearly not comfortable with the idea of another player entering their select grouping that had the capability to launch heavy communication satellites.

What makes developed nations worry?

Space agencies of developed nations have reason to be worried about Indian space programme in general and GSLV’s success in particular. Consider this: It cost ISRO $36 million to put GSAT-6 using GSLV-D6 in orbit. This is far lower than the $60 million cost that the European Space Agency’s Ariane 5 entails. ISRO says it is now ready to launch commercial satellites weighing up to 2.2 tonne.

Why do others can start preferring ISRO?

ISRO has to keep launching more GSLVs to establish the reliability of the launch vehicle. Its customers who are investing multi-million dollars in building advanced satellites are not going to hand over them to ISRO simply on the basis of lower cost. Reliability is the key in this business and it comes from repeated textbook launches. If ISRO’s smaller launch vehicle PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) is attracting orders in droves it is because it has been in service for 20 years and has had 29 continuous successful launches.

What's next by ISRO?

The next real technology leap for ISRO is GSLV Mark III which will have the capability to put satellites weighing 5 tonne in orbit. It is a much larger vehicle weighing 640 tonne (GSLV-D6 in comparison weighed 416 tonne). ISRO is developing a bigger cryogenic engine for this vehicle and it has now been tested for 800 seconds. If GSLV Mark III succeeds, India will gain the capability to launch any communication satellites in the world. GSLV-D6’s success gives the confidence that it is only a matter of time before that will happen too.