Question : Operational Satellites

(a) whether the satellites which are currently operational are fulfilling only half of the requirements of the country;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether it has been affecting our capacity to resolve issues relating to governance and if so, the details thereof;
(d) the number of satellites which are currently operational along with the number of satellites which are under construction; and
(e) the steps being taken by the Government for building more and more satellites and to accelerate their use?

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PERSONNEL, PG & PENSIONS AND IN THE PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
(DR. JITENDRA SINGH):

(a) & (b)
The currently operational 42 satellites are being utilised to meet the requirements of resources monitoring, infrastructure planning, enabling weather forecasting, disaster management support, location based services, host of societal applications, including the demands of satellite communication. To ensure continuity of services and to meet further requirements in these areas, a plan is in place to suitably augment the space infrastructure.

(c) Satellite based data and services are being used by various Ministries/Departments in planning, monitoring and evaluation of developmental activities in various sectors, which include agriculture, forestry & environment, water resources, urban & rural planning, asset mapping, mineral prospecting, ocean resources, meteorology, satellite communication, location based services, tele-education, tele-medicine and disaster management support.

(d) At present, there are 42 operational satellites in orbit comprising of 18 Earth observation (including meteorological), 15 communication, 7 navigational and 2 Space Science satellites. 26 satellites are currently under various stages of realisation.

(e) In order to step up the building of satellites, ISRO is involving a consortium of industries for Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) of satellites, wherein the sub-systems and infrastructure is being provided by ISRO. The AIT of a navigation satellite is in progress and the satellite is getting ready for launch in second half of this year.
In order to accelerate the use of satellites and its services, an outreach facility has been established in Hyderabad to cater to the requirements of capacity building in space-based applications. This facility caters to several activities like training, Information Kiosks, content generation, outsourcing and mass communication. The facility comprises of large number of thin client systems providing access to satellite data and various software tools for building applications for various developmental activities.

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