NABHMITRA

Overview

Space Applications Centre (SAC), is a major research and development centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It plays a key role in realizing vision and mission of ISRO. Located at Ahmedabad, SAC is spread across two campuses having multi-disciplinary activities.

The core competence of the centre lies in development of space borne and air borne instruments/payloads and their applications for national development and societal benefits. These applications are in diverse areas and primarily meet the communication, navigation and remote sensing needs of the country. Besides these, the centre also contributes significantly in scientific and planetary missions of ISRO like Chandrayan-1, Mars Orbiter Mission etc.

The communication transponders developed at this centre for Indian National Satellite (INSAT) and Geo Synchronous Satellite (GSAT) series of satellites are used by government and private sector for VSAT, DTH, internet, broadcasting, telephony etc. These satellites are instrumental in reaching remote parts of the country. The payloads for major navigation systems of the country - Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) and GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) are being developed by this centre.

This centre designs and develops the optical and microware sensors for the satellites, signal and image processing software, GIS software and many applications for Earth Observation (EO) programme of ISRO. These applications are in diverse areas of Geosciences, Agriculture, Environment and Climate Change, Physical Oceanography, Biological Oceanography, Atmosphere, Cryosphere, Hydrosphere etc.

The facilities at SAC includes highly sophisticated payload integration laboratories, electronic and mechanical fabrication facilities, environmental test facilities, systems reliability/assurance group, image processing and analysis facilities, project management support group and a well-stocked library. SAC has active collaborations with industry, academia, national and international institutes for research and development. The centre also has state-of-art in-house and mobile exhibitions to propagate space technology and applications amongst students and public.

Nabhmitra

Nabhmitra (A friend in the sky) has been developed for tracking of small boats (sub-20 meter boats) in Indian coastal region. The network supports two-way communication between the terminals and the Centralized Control Centre. It offers networking features like - location tracking, emergency message transmission (SoS), resource management etc.