At 7:08 am on October 26, 2008, when the spacecraft Chandrayaan-I pushed beyond the 1.5 lakh-km mark in space, it depended on a 32-metre antenna in a quiet saucer-shaped valley about 40 km from Bangalore near a village called Byalalu.

At that distance — the furthest an Indian spacecraft had ever travelled — none of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO’s) 11-metre antenna ground stations of old could have sent or received the radio signals necessary to control operations on Chandrayaan-I.

Knowing well that deep-space contact with the spacecraft would be central to the success of India’s maiden unmanned moon mission, ISRO conceived the creation of an Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) as a part of the Chandrayaan-I project proposals. The success of this plan makes India one among only six nations that have resources to track spacecraft beyond a 1.5 lakh distance from the earth.

“You cannot say you are going to the moon and then go asking other countries for deep space support. Others will be able to help only when they have the time. The costs for hiring out deep space support are also high,” says the director of ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) Dr S K Shivakumar.

Commissioned in November 2005, the Indian Deep Space Network, comprising two antennae — one 32 metres high and the other 18 metres — capable of sending and receiving deep space radio signals and remote controlling missions officially began operations with Chandrayaan-I.

Before the moon mission got underway, through September and early October, when the network had been established, engineers and scientists from ISRO spent time testing their newly created systems by using distant radio stars for target practice.

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