U R Rao Satellite Centre, where ISRO has built more than 100 satellites

Background

U R Rao Satellite Centre, or URSC, stands at Vimanapura in Bengaluru and carried the short name ISAC in its earlier years. It is the lead centre for building satellites and for developing the technologies that go into them. The spacecraft it builds serve communication, navigation, meteorology, remote sensing, space science and interplanetary exploration. The ISRO Satellite Integration and Test Establishment, known as ISITE, holds clean rooms along with a 6.5 Metre thermo vacuum chamber, a 29 Ton vibration facility, a Compact Antenna Test Facility and an acoustic test facility, all under a single roof. Every communication and navigation spacecraft is assembled, integrated and tested at ISITE, which also has a dedicated setup for turning out standardised subsystems. The Laboratory for Electro Optics System at Peenya in Bengaluru is a unit of URSC and is mainly responsible for sensors for ISRO programmes. Since it began, the centre has built more than 100 satellites, with private and public sector industries supplying standard satellite hardware.