ECIL designed A 32-metre antenna is ready to track Chandrayaan-I to be launched on October 22.

ISRO Chairman and Secretary of Department of Space, G Madhavan Nair, commissioned the antenna as part of the Indian Deep Space Network facility at Byalalu on Friday. After Chadrayaan-I is launched at 6.20 am on October 22, the ECIL antenna would start tracking the satellite at around 12.30 pm.

The antenna would provide telemetry, command and science data reception functions for all space mission, said Chairman and Managing Director of the ECIL, K S Rajashekhar Rao.The antenna, which is the largest-ever made in India, would find application in many fields like tele-radio system that provides real-time connection between rural health centres and well-equipped hospitals and collecting data on soil and weather to aid the farming community.

The antenna, which has a life span of at least two decades, is designed and manufactured at a cost of Rs 65 crore, with about 25 engineers constantly working on it. The antenna’s life, which is much longer than the two-year life of Chadrayaan-I, would make it possible for it to be used in other future space missions, including Chandrayaan-II, Rao said.The 300-tonne structure consists of a 32-metre diameter parabolic main reflector in cassegrain configuration.

The parabloid reflector is illuminated by a series of precision machined mirrors arranged in beam waveguide configuration.The antenna would automatically switch off below an angle of 5 degrees and would cause no radiation in the surroundings, Rao said.