EDUSAT- THE INDIAN SATELLITE FOR EDUCATION

KARABI KHANRA

M.ED TRAINEE

GANGADHARPUR SIKSHAN MANDIR

GSAT-3,also known as EDUSAT,was a communication satellite which was launched on 20

September 2004 by the Indian Space Research Organisation. EDUSAT is the first Indian satellite
built exclusively to serve the educational sector. It is mainly intended to meet the demand for
an interactive satellite based distance education system for the country. EDUSAT carries five Ku
band trans ponders providing spot beams, one Ku band transponder providing a national beam
and six extended C band transponders providing national coverage beams.

EDUSAT was successfully launched into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit on the first
operational launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, which flew from the First
Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. EDUSAT was initially placed into a
transfer orbit with a perigee of 180 kilometres (110mi) and an apogee of 35,985 kilometres
(22,360mi) and a period of 10.5 hours , inclined at 19.2 degrees to the equator.

EDUSAT was decommissioned in September 2010 and relocated to a grave yard orbit. India's
educational programme got a fillipon 20 September 2004 with the successful launch of EDUSAT,
from the launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Ap.

EDUSAT is an indigenously designed satellite, which is exclusively devoted to the fiekd of

education. This is a path breaking effort in the concept of tele education. EDUSAT was placed in
the 36,000 km high geostationary orbit and co-located with INSAT-3C and KALPANA-1 at 74
degree East longitude. The satellite weighing 1950 kg at lift off, including 110 kg of propellants
for orbit raising and maintenance is designed to provide service for seven years. Satellites can
establish the connectivity between urban educational institutions with adequate infrastructure
imparting quality education and the large number of rural and semi urban educational
institutions that lack the necessary infrastructure. Besides supporting formal education,
satellite systems can facilitate dissemination of knowledge to the rural and remote population
about important aspects of health, hygiene and personality development and allow
professionals to update their knowledge base as well . Thus in spite of limited number of
trained and skilled teachers, the aspirations of the growing student population can be met
through the concept of tele education. The concept of beaming educational programmes
through satellites was effectively demonstrated for the first time in India in 1975-76 through
the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) conducted using the Application
Technology Satellite (ATS-6). During this unique experiment, which is hailed as the largest
sociological experiment conducted anywhere in the world, programmes pertaining to health,
hygiene and family planning were telecast directly to about 2400 Indian villages spread over six
states. Later with the commissioning of INSAT system in 1983, a variety of educational
programmes had been telecast.

With the success of the INSAT- based educational services, a need was felt to launch a satellite
dedicated for educational service and ISRO conceived the EDUSAT project in October 2002.
EDUSAT is the first exclusive satellite for serving the educational sector. It especially configured
to meet the growing demand for an interactive satellite based distance education system for
the country through audio- visual medium, employing Direct - to - Home (DTH) quality broad
cast. The satellite has multiple regional beams covering different parts of India - 5Ku band
transponders with spot beams covering different regions, a Ku- band and transponder with its
footprint covering the Indian mainland region and 6C -band transponders with their footprints
covering the entire country.

The scope of the EDUSAT programme is planned to be realized in three phases. In the first
phase of pilot projects, Ku- band transponder on board INSAT- 3B, which is already in orbit, is
being used.

ELEMENTS:

Mission Education

space craft mass 1950.5 kg mass (at lift off) 819.4 kg

(Dry mass)

Onboard power Total four solar panel of size 2.54 M×

1.525 M generating 2040 W (EOL), two
24 AH NiCd batteries for eclipse
support.

Stabilization 3 axis body stabilised in orbit using

sensors, momentum and reaction
wheels, magnetic torques and eight 10
N and 22 N reaction control thrusters.

Propulsion 440 N Liquid Apogee Motor with

MON-3 and MMH for orbit raising.
 Payload  Six upper extended C- band
transponders.
 Five lower Ku band
transponders with regional
beam coverage.
 One lower Ku band
National beam
transponders with Indian
main land coverage.
 Ku beacon.
 12 C band high power
transponders with
extended coverage,
covering south east and
north west region apart
from Indian main land using
63 W LTWTAs.

FUNCTION AS WELL AS ADVANTAGES:

 It covers all geographical area inside the country.

 It can provide interactive and cost effective education.
 It can provide consistency to information.
 The spot beams used in the EDUSAT are more powerful and signals can be received with
a smaller satellite dish.
 It is a satellite fully dedicated to the cause of education.
 It is useful to implement virtual classroom in remote and rural schools. The teacher at
the transmission end virtually becomes available to all the virtual classrooms at the
receiving end. This process can help in overcoming shortage of trained teachers if in
service training is giving to the existing teachers in the most economical way.
 It can provide audiovisual medium and interactive multimedia facility.
 It can open up many possibilities like online teachings, video conferencing etc.
 It can be used at all levels of education, from primary schools to professional courses.
 It can provide live lecture session from the best and expert teachers.
  It can facilitate provision of equality in educational opportunity. Before establishing the
EDUSAT quality classes and classes handled by experts benefitted only urban students.
But with the working of the EDUSAT rural students also can enjoy its benefit.
 EDUSAT has enhanced distance education in the country, especially in medical ,
technical and higher education streams. The project will be run by the ISRO and IGNOU,
the former providing the technical infrastructure and the latter developing courses and
training teachers.
 Students will get the facility to see what they read in their textbooks and to do
experiments with the help of multimedia technologies.

LIMITATIONS:

 Satellite manufacturing requires more time. Moreover satellite design and development
requires higher cost.
 Satellite once launched, requires to be monitored and controlled on regular periods so
that it remains in the orbit.
 Satellite has life which is about 12- 15 years. Due to this fact, another launch has to be
planned before it becomes un- operational.
 Redundant components are used in the network design. This incur more cost in the
installation phase.

CONCLUSION:

Technology has a good impact on Education. EDUSAT is the best proof of that. It has enhanced
the quality of Education. It has proved Education dynamic as well as modern. At present,
EDUSAT has become important for each and every member of Educational world and modern
society.
REFERENCE :

https://isro.gov.in>spacecraft

https://www.newscientist.coms

www.emmrcamd.org> Education

https://space.dkyrocket.de>doc.sdat

edutechnofriend.blogspot.com