Genesis

 To spearhead the space research activities, Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was set up in 1962 under the Department of Atomic Energy. Subsequently, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was established in August 1969, in place of INCOSPAR. The Government of India constituted the Space Commission and established Department of Space (DOS) in June 1972 and brought ISRO under DOS in September 1972.

Since inception, the Indian space programmed has been orchestrated well and had three distinct elements such as, satellites for communication and remote sensing, the space transportation system and application programmed. In 1967, the first ‘Experimental Satellite Communication Earth Station (ESCES)’ located in Ahmedabad was operationalized, which also doubled as a training canter for the Indian as well as International scientists and engineers.

To establish that a satellite system can contribute to the national development, ISRO was clear that it need not wait for its own satellites to begin application development, while foreign satellites could be used in the initial stages. However, before trying out a full-fledged satellite system, some controlled experiment to prove the efficacy of television medium for national development was found necessary. Accordingly, a TV programmed on agricultural information to farmers ‘Krishi Darshan’ was started, which received good response.

The next logical step was the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), hailed as ‘the largest sociological experiment in the world’ during 1975-76. This experiment benefited around 200,000 people, covering 2400 villages of six states and transmitted development oriented programmed using the American Technology Satellite (ATS-6). The credit of training 50,000 science teachers primary schools in one year goes to SITE.