The satellite watcher

Shivakumar,director of ISROs Telemetry,Tracking and Command Network,and his team baby-sit Indias constellation of 11 remote sensing satellites

On August 5 this year,after a solar tsunami flared in deep space,the director of the Indian Space Research Organisations Telemetry,Tracking and Command Network,S K Shivakumar,was on the telephone,calming anxious officials of the National Remote Sensing Agency about the health of Indias constellation of 11 remote sensing satellites currently in orbit in space. The solar tsunami was a non-event for the satellites,he said.

As director of ISTRAC,the 57-year-old Shivakumar is the man who baby sits Indias remote sensing satellites round the clockfrom the time of a launch to the end of a mission.

The genial Shivakumar and his team of designated satellite controllers work 24/7 to keep the satellitessome like Oceansat-1 that is 11 years old,others like the month-old Cartosat 2in good health and serving up the data it is programmed to produce.

We are active from the launch of a mission to the close of a mission. Other groups involved in a mission tend to go away as their stages stabilise,not us. We remain from start to end. If a mission has to be closed,ISTRAC has to have a say, he says.

ISTRACs satellite controllers and engineers use a mission operations centre MOX 1 located on the outskirts of Bangalore and a network of ground stations around the world to ensure that satellites dont stray from their orbits,that all systems and sub-systems are working,that data is being recorded and transmitted to ISRO for dissemination among its users.

Shivakumar became ISTRACs director in 1998,after working two decades in ISRO in different capacities,including that of mission director for projects like the IRS-1B and IRS-1C.

One of Shivakumars biggest challenges to date has been the 2008 maiden Indian mission to the moon. The agency set and operated the Indian Deep Space Network and its 32-metre dish antennae for the project.

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According to Shivakumar,the mission operations centre in Bangalore is being expanded and by the end of this year,a second centre that will be able to handle 18 satellites at a go will be deployed.

India has now started launching more than one satellite a year with the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. We are also seeing more than one satellite on every launch vehicle. We thought it would be good to have two control centers in the same complex to increase capacity, says Shivakumar.