ISRO suffers setback as it loses contact with satellite

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Scientists have lost contact with a satellite days after it was launched into orbit with much fanfare, in a setback for India's national space agency.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost communication with the GSAT-6A satellite as it prepared to undertake its third and final orbiting manoeuvre on Saturday.
'Efforts are underway to establish the link with the satellite, ISRO said in a statement.
The satellite an indigenous model weighing more than 2,000 tonnes was designed to improve communications.
It was launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.
The satellite was to be placed in its intended orbit 36,000km above ground level after manoeuvres from the space agency's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka, about 180km from Bengaluru.
Only after communication link is re-established can the satellite be placed in its intended orbit.
Scientists completed the first orbit raising operation of the satellite at 9.22am on Friday, which saw the satellite changing its closest and farthest point from earth besides changing its inclination.
The LAM (liquid apogee motor) engine worked perfectly fine, and the first orbit raising manoeuvre was a success, and the satellite reached the right spot as intended, a source said.
The second orbit raising manoeuvre was scheduled for 10.51am on Saturday, and well-placed sources said the operation was also completed with a successful firing of the LAM engine.
The agency received data from the satellite for about four minutes after the second orbit raising operation, after which the it went blank, the sources said.
Initial analysis points to a power system failure.
On Saturday, the agency's new chairman K Sivan held a marathon meeting with senior scientists through a teleconference.
This was ISRO's first launch after Sivan took charge, even as the mission itself was conceived and developed before his time.
GSAT-6A is a high power communication satellite which was to have a mission life of about 10 years.
It was to provide mobile communication for India with multi-band coverage facility five beams in S-band and one beam in C-band.
The satellite has a 6m-wide antenna, the biggest used by an ISRO communication satellite so far, meant for the S-band communication.
This was to enable the satellite to provide mobile communication for the country through handheld ground terminals, which was not possible earlier as smaller antennas meant larger ground stations.
The satellite was also to provide with communication facilities for the armed forces.
The space programme is a source of much pride in India and an achievement that highlights its emergence as a rising power and major world economy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the launch on Thursday, saying he was 'proud of @isro for taking the nation towards new heights and a brighter future.
The launch of the satellite was seen as another feather in the cap for ISRO scientists, who won Asia's race to Mars in 2014 when an Indian spacecraft reached the Red Planet on a shoestring budget.
That feat burnished India's reputation as a reliable low-cost option for space exploration, with its $73mn price tag drastically undercutting Nasa's Maven Mars $671mn mission.
In February last year India put a record 104 satellites into orbit from a single rocket, surpassing Russia which launched 39 satellites in one mission in June 2014.
But the Indian space programme has also been blighted by failures, most recently in August last year when a mission to launch a backup navigation satellite suffered a major technical glitch.

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