Space (Physics) Part-II

INSAT is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites launched by ISRO to fulfill the needs in the field of telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology etc.

The major frequency bands used for satellite communication in India are S-band, C-band, Upper Extended C band, Ku band and Ka band. The INSAT/GSAT satellites carry transponders in these bands.

Television transmission is an example of simplex communication. Simplex is a one-way only communication in which broadcasted information travel in one direction only.

The first Indian Remote-sensing satellite IRS-IA was launched on March 17, 1988 from Soviet Union Baikanour Cosmodrome.

The remote sensing applications using IRS have proliferated into almost every aspect of national development. The data is now used regularly for agricultural crop acreage and yield estimation, drought monitoring and assessment, flood mapping, land use and land cover mapping, wasteland management, water resources management, ocean/marine resources survey and management, mineral prospecting, forest resources survey and management etc. Remote sensing satellites are not used for telecommunications or traffic studies.

For the measurement/estimation of chlorophyll content in the vegetation of a specific location (through hyper-spectral and multi-spectral imaging), greenhouse gas emissions from rice paddies of a specific location (through short wave infrared, thermal infrared and Merlin Lidar techniques) and land surface temperatures of a specific location (through thermal infrared etc.), satellite images/remote sensing data are used.

During 1994, in the field of space technology, India has demonstrated its capability to launch synchronous satellites. On 15 October 1994, PSLV (in its first successful mission) successfully launched the IRS-P2 remote sensing satellite in an 820-kilometre sun synchronous orbit.

With this successful launch, India became the world's sixth country to launch a satellite into low- Earth orbit.

INSAT-3C was launched by the Ariane-4 launch vehicle of Arianespace from Kourou, French Guiana in South America. Communication satellite GSAT-30 was launched from Kourou on 17 January, 2020 while communication satellite CMS-01 was launched by PSLV-C50 from Sriharikota on 17 December, 2020.

CMS-02 (GSAT-24) was launched on 22 June, 2022 by Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

INSAT-4A, the first one in INSAT-4 satellites series was successfully launched by ISRO on December 22, 2005 from Kourou, French Guiana by Ariane-5V169 launch vehicle. The satellite weighed 3081 kg.

In its 39ᵗʰ flight (PSLV-C37), ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle successfully launched the 714 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 103 co-passengers satellites on 15 February, 2017 from Satish Dhawan Space Center SHAR, Sriharikota.

The total weight of all the 104 satellites carried on board PSLV-C 37 was 1378 kg. This was a record for the highest number of satellites sent to space on a single launch, until 24 January 2021, when SpaceX launched the Transporter-1 mission on a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 143 satellites into orbit.