ISRO's 2nd Master Control

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will get a spanking new Master Control Facility (MCF) in Bhopal.

This will share the increasing load of its communication satellites, space department officials said. G Madhavan Nair, ISRO's chairman, will be present at the inauguration of the MCF on Monday.

The new MCF will share the growing number of Indian geo-stationary satellites with ISRO's main MCF at Hassan in Karnataka.

"We have eight Insat series satellites in orbit on Sunday, and to begin with, perhaps two or three will be controlled from the Bhopal MCF."

This centre too, like Hassan, will be dedicated to controlling and monitoring the geostationary Insat satellites, officials said.

ISRO has another tracking and control facility in Bangalore from where it monitors all its remote sensing satellites, which are at lower orbits.

ISRO plans to launch several more Insat series satellites in the coming years.