Prashanth G N/TNN
Bangalore, Oct 22: Once the launch was over Sriharikota, Peenya in Bangalore took over Chandrayaan-I — the spacecraft and mission.
Hectic activity is on at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya, which will be the country's nerve-centre for tracking and controlling Chandrayaan-I for the next two years.
Peenya received the first signals from the spacecraft 17 minutes after take-off, when the fourth stage of the rocket separated and injected the spacecraft into Earth's orbit. From the 17th minute to the very last day of the spacecraft's life — two years from now — ISTRAC will be in command.
The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Byalalu will join ISTRAC in tracking the spacecraft six hours after take-off. Both DSN and ISTRAC will act as back-up stations for each other, with ISTRAC concentrating on the data flow from the spacecraft, and DSN helping in reception of the radio signals owing to its powerful 32-metre antenna. But ISTRAC will be the primary agency tracking the craft.
The control centre at ISTRAC has about 350 people monitoring the health of Indian satellites. While there are groups designated for specific satellites, any member from any group could be called upon to help with Chandrayaan.
On Tuesday, engineers at ISTRAC were busy running last-minute checks on simulators, communication links, quality of links, verifying operations of systems and testing for 100% accuracy in reception, flow and expression of data. ISTRAC deputy director Chiranjeevi said, "There is work every two-three seconds. We have to ensure that all systems are working to perfection."
Chiranjeevi said ISTRAC would receive the first signals from the spacecraft in the form of engineering units — data on computers. "There will be hundreds of such units flowing in. We will check the units for voltage on the craft, temperature, power, battery strength, orbit determination and orientation, fuel and general health of the spacecraft."
He said engineers will work in shifts to monitor Chandrayaan every minute for the next two years. "They sit in front of the computers and look at data flow based on which control commands are operated. But there are 2,000 parameters to check on and it would be humanly impossible to get engineers to monitor every one of them. So we have automatic software systems in place that will immediately alert us to any change in operations and sequence," Chiranjeevi explained.
"We can't get anything wrong. We have been maintaining satellites for the last 20 years and it would be the same with Chandrayaan," he added.
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