Located about 80km from Chennai on India’s east coast, Satish Dhawan Space centre is used by ISRO to launch all of its satellites including those to the Moon and Mars. Also known as Sriharikota, it was established during the late 1960s, but today it has a vehicle assembly building, two launch pads and a state-of-the-art mission control centre.
In this episode, Dr MYS Prasad, the director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, describes the key services and activities at India’s 21st-century rocket launch complex. This interview was recorded in January 2014, and Dr Prasad stood down as director on 31st May 2015.
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India’s space program is now over half a century old. During this time, its Infrastructure has evolved. This episode looks at the current communication capabilities used to support space vehicles during launch, in Earth orbit or on interplanetary missions.
‘s flagship deep-space antenna is the 32m fully steerable dish at Byalalu, close to Bangalore. It was established for the 2008 Moon mission and has since been the primary means of communicating with the Mars Orbiter Mission. Byalalu is also the central site for India’s Regional Navigation Satellite System IRNSS, due to come into full operation in 2016.
This interview was recorded in his office at the