Master Control Facility (ISRO)

The Master Control Facility (MCF)(Hindi:मुख्य नियंत्रण सुविधा) is a facility set up by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in the city of Hassan in the Indian state of Karnataka. Established in 1982, this facility is responsible for monitoring and controlling geostationary and geosynchronous satellites launched by ISRO. This was the only Master Control Facility of ISRO till another one was established in Bhopal in 2005.

When ISRO wanted a control facility, it inspected various sites that were offered to it within India. ISRO chose Hassan as the location (Location on Google Maps) because it was free of noise and encountered less terrestrial transmission than other proposed sites. Low interference was a must since the facility should be able to pick up even very weak signals from the satellite. The land to set up this facility was spread across 17.2 hectares and offered by the Government of Karnataka.

The MCF has three internal divisions; the Spacecraft Control Centre, Mission Control Centre and the Earth station.

This centre is responsible for controlling satellites and various commands are sent from this centre to the satellite to undertake the desired operations.

This centre plays a major role main during the launch of the satellite and its initial period in space. This is the place where the Mission Director and the different designers of the various modules in the satellite keep a watch on the functioning of the satellite. They do this by studying and comprehending the various parameters of satellite via telemetry signals that the satellites send, related to the health of its various modules. In case of any deviation from the prescribed limits of the parameters, an automatic alarm is sounded and the respective designers discuss with the Mission Director and send corrections to the satellite from this centre.

MCF has an integrated facility consisting of seven earth stations. The earth stations are assisted by an antenna array which provide the communication link between the satellite and the MCF (The link from earth station to satellite is UPLINK and from satellite to earth station is DOWNLINK). The MCF has 3 full-motion and about a dozen limited-motion antennas. The full-motion antennas can be turned around 360° and can be tilted from zero° to 90° in elevation. They send commands to the satellite, receive signals from it, thereby also helping to check that the satellite is in orbit. The full motion antennas are mostly used during the satellite launch and once the satellite is in its prescribed orbit, the limited motion antennas take over the communication link with the satellite.

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