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| In addition, EDUSAT will also carry six C-band transponders with their footprints covering the entire country.
EDUSAT system will be primarily meant for school, college and higher levels of education and will also support non formal education. The scope of EDUSAT programme will be realised in three phases. The Karnataka EDUSAT pilot project is covered under the first phase covering the pre-EDUSAT period. During this period, a Ku-band transponder on board ISRO's INSAT-3A or INSAT-3B, which are already in orbit, will be used. In Karnataka, Visveswaraiah Technological University will be the main beneficiary of the pilot project with hundred nodes in the network covering all its engineering colleges. In addition, it is expected that other institutions of the Karnataka State Education Department will benefit from the project. Besides Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh will also implement similar pilot projects. In Maharashtra, the Y B Chavan State Open University, Nasik, will be covered under the pilot project while in Madhya Pradesh, the Rajiv Gandhi Technical University will be the beneficiary. Each location will cater to about 100 classrooms. In the second phase, EDUSAT will be used in a semi-operational project with one uplink in each beam and about 100 to 200 classrooms per beam. In addition to the locations in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, two more states and one national institution will be covered in this phase. It is anticipated that more users will come forward to fund the ground reception network in this phase and build it up to about 1,000 classrooms per beam. In the third phase, the EDUSAT network is expected to become fully operational. Manufacturers and service providers are expected to replicate the systems with funding by the end-users with technical and managerial support from the ISRO. Ground infrastructure to meet the educational needs of the country will be built up in the operational phase. EDUSAT will be able to support a total of 25 to 30 uplinks and about 5000 remote terminals per uplink. To meet the full requirements of the country, it may be necessary to add a constellation of satellites in a phased manner. EDUSAT is another example of India's commitment to use space technology for national development.
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