WIRE:11/04/2000 10:44:00 ET India's INSAT 2B Satellite Restored BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - A faulty Indian satellite that partly supports the country"s telecommunications and broadcast sectors was restored on Saturday after an enforced shutdown, a space department spokesman said. "The transponders have been restored and all services are back...the satellite is practically back to normal," the spokesman told Reuters. INSAT 2B satellite had been shut down on Friday after a fault in its earth orientation. S. Rangarajan, director of the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) program, told Reuters earlier that the satellite had 10-12 transponders that were being used to support telecommunications, VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals) and radio networking functions. The satellite is one of seven in the INSAT series that are the mainstay of India"s telecommunications, broadcasting and meteorological functions. A spokesman for the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) told Reuters that the INSAT 2B satellite lost its earth-lock late on Friday evening. The spokesman said that loss of earth-lock meant that the direction of the satellite -- which is fixed to constantly face a specific side of the earth -- had changed due to unknown reasons. He said the satellite"s functions had to be shut down as a change in its direction results in its solar panels moving away from the direction of the sun, meaning that its batteries cannot be re-charged. "This (shutdown) needs to be done so the battery does not get discharged," he said and added that loss of earth-lock was not uncommon. The spokesman said that INSAT 2B, launched in 1993, had a lifespan of seven years. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20001104_406.html

-- Doris (reaper@pacifier.com), November 04, 2000