ISRO to launch GSAT-32 in Oct 2019 to replace GSAT-6A which went incommunicado days after launch

Indian space agency ISRO will launch GSAT-32 satellite in October 2019 to replace GSAT-6A which stopped communicating a few days after its launch on March 29, an official said on Sunday.

"We have not been able to establish a link with GSAT-6A satellite so far. Even as we are continuously monitoring the satellite, as days are progressing, our chances of reviving it are less."

"The GSAT-32 will be launched in October 2019 from the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh as a replacement for GSAT-6A," state-run Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) chairman K Sivan told reporters in Bengaluru.

The 2,000-kg satellite was meant to complement the GSAT-6 launched in 2015 and help in providing technologies for point-to-point communications for military.

The satellite could not be placed in its intended orbit 36,000 km above ground as it stopped responding to the manoeuvre from the space agency's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka, about 180 km from here.

ISRO, however, is still continuing to monitor the satellite hoping to re-establish the link with it, Sivan said. If the satellite does not respond by 2019, it will be declared "dead", he added.

After the Rs 240-crore worth satellite stopped communicating due to a suspected power system failure, the space agency has been cross-checking all the satellites ready to be launched for the same.

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