OREANDA-NEWS. October 25, 2012. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has achieved a major landmark with the successful deployment of its Space Grade Solar Panels on the GSAT-10 Satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Launched from French Guyana, the satellite is the heaviest Indian satellite built by ISRO and caters to the country’s telecommunications and TV broadcasting requirements.

The four Solar Panels supplied by BHEL for GSAT-10, have an area of 5.36 sq. mtrs. each and comprise multi-junction Solar Cells in series and parallel combinations, with a total power capacity of 4000 Watts. In addition, BHEL has also supplied two sets of Li-ion batteries, each consisting of 40 Li-ion cells with a power storage capacity of 160 Ampere-Hours, for GSAT-10.

Both the space grade solar panels and batteries were manufactured and tested to strict space quality standards at the BHEL facility by highly skilled manpower.

The panels were further subjected to detailed testing by ISRO such as vibration test and thermovac tests as part of the space quality requirements to validate their mechanical, electrical and thermal performance.

BHEL, in collaboration with ISRO, has established state-of-the-art 10,000 class clean room facility at its Electronics Systems Division in Bangalore for the assembly and testing of Space Grade Solar Panels using high efficiency Solar Cells.

BHEL has had a long association with ISRO and has earlier supplied several Space Grade Solar Panels and Space Quality Batteries to ISRO for use in their satellites. BHEL has so far supplied 55 solar panels totalling to 250 square metres of area and 40 batteries for various satellites of ISRO.