ISRO Signs Contracts with 3 Vendors to Assemble 27 Satellites

ISRO takes up projects that opens up new avenues of technological achievements. U.R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), ISRO’s nodal satellites division has signed separate contracts

 

with three vendors to outsource Spacecraft Assembly Integration and Testing (AIT) activities.

• The contracts were signed with Alpha Design Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and its six consortium members, also with defence public enterprise Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Tata Advanced Systems Ltd, Hyderabad.

Purpose of the contracts and how will they function?

• The outsourcing is part of capacity-building initiatives undertaken by U R Rao Satellite Centre to promote participation of Indian industry from spacecraft subsystems to spacecraft assembly, integration and testing.
• Each of the contract partners will work with URSC to produce three small to medium satellites each year or total of 27 spacecraft by July 2021.
• About 50 members from each contract partner will separately work with URSC engineers to complete the project.

About U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC):

• URSC (formerly known as ISRO Satellite Centre) is the nodal centre of ISRO for design, development, fabrication and testing of all Indian made satellites.
• It was established in the year of 1972 and is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
• It was renamed after former ISRO Chairman and ISAC founding Director Dr. Udupi Ramachandra Rao in April 2018.
• Since inception, URSC has a distinction of building more than 100 satellites for various applications like scientific, communication, navigation and remote sensing.

Questions:

Q1. When was the ISRO Satellite Centre established?
a. 1999
b. 2015
c. 1972
d. None of the above

Q2. Where is the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), based?
a. Bengaluru, Karnataka
b. Lucknow, U.P
c. New York, U.S
d. None of the above